27 'jobs' bills, Obamacare repeals useless, symbolic waste of taxpayer money
It's not uncommon for a party in Congress controlling only one of the houses to hold a vote in attempt to perform an action it's fully aware the other house won't approve. It's largely symbolic, but it serves as an indication that the party is trying to do what it promised to get elected. The Republican's first attempt, named "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," came on Feb. 1, 2011.
In the 533 days since that first attempt, as of the writing of this article, the Republicans have attempted to repeal Obamacare an additional 32 times. In other words, the Republicans are attempting to repeal the law roughly every 16 days, despite the fact that the Democrat-controlled Senate will never agree and President Obama would veto the law in the impossible chance that it did.
Experts have estimated that the House has spent a total of 80 hours, or two full work weeks, on the votes for these repeal measures. One estimate from the Congressional Research Service has determined that operating the House of Representatives costs the taxpayers around $24 million a week. The Republicans have wasted $48 million of our tax dollars on pointless repetitive symbolism.
Meanwhile, the Republican House has offered zero jobs creation bills since gaining power.
The House GOP website lists 27 jobs bills they passed that are currently blocked by the Senate. The number is a joke, however; 24 of those bills actually do nothing but eliminate regulations on certain big-lobbyist industries, notably banks, energy firms and big agriculture. The Great Recession, the Savings and Loans Crisis and the Great Depression prove what happens when we deregulate: Companies get greedy and pursue profit at the expense of anyone else. Profits are already at record highs, regulations aside, and companies are refusing to hire anyway.
One of the 27 bills eliminates the per-country cap on immigration, making it easier for foreign nationals to come here for jobs, thus taking them away from natural-born Americans. The disconnect from their established anti-immigrant policy is mind-blowing.
The final three bills attempt to force executive action on energy. One would end the moratorium on offshore drilling, even though little has changed in the way of safety or regulation since the Deepwater Horizon incident — and another bill seeks to end those regulations. The third tries to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline, which has been estimated to generate mostly short-term jobs.
In short, the GOP doesn't care about Americans. They want power, they want to appease their corporate masters and they'll drive our country into the ground to do it.
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