Is it hypocrisy or irony?

Got to hand it to the Republicans in the House (and their fellow travelers running for president).

They took the House in November, mainly due to economic anxiety and concerns about unemployment (plus, they had a very motivated base that felt they had to take the country back from a foreign-born Muslim president).  

But since taking office they have spent most of their time squawking about the deficit, or in places like Wisconsin and New Jersey trying to take away collective bargaining rights from public employees - economic liabilities that do not create wealth such as teachers and fire fighters.

Complaining about the deficit is code for two things: cutting taxes for rich people, and cutting programs that help non-rich people.

And the union attack is politics plain and simple.  In the wake of the Citizens United decision that allows unlimited corporate contributions, unions and the role they play in elections - both money and people - have never more important.   You take away unions and you take away lots of power from the Democrats.  It's a reprise of the late 19th century policy to break the backs of Native American culture and resistance by wiping out the bison from the plains. 

No more food for plains Native Americans, no more Native Americans.  No more unions, fewer Democrats.  And without unions, Dems would have to raise money exclusively from the same set of economic winners who are socially liberal but fiscally more conservative.

I wonder if after March 4th, the deadline for passing a spending bill to keep the government open, the focus will return to jobs and the economy.

Besides the hypocrisy of running on jobs and governing on helping rich people pay fewer taxes, there's the irony that if you cut the size of government - local, state or federal - you put people out of work.  Government is not some machine that eats money and automatically prints reports and buys toilet paper and tanks.  People - employees, Americans - do that.  And though corporations are raking in record profits they are NOT hiring Americans (those capitalist bastards!).   

And the only way to meaningfully cut the size of government or spending is to gouge defense, or cut Medicare. Medicaid, and/or Social Security.  Everything else is window dressing, hypocrisy, irony, lying - or a cynical ploy to cut taxes and attack unions. 

The last thing the economy needs is more people out of work.  And that's the bottom line here.  Jobs are more important than deficit reduction and tax cuts.  That should be the focus of the executive and legislative branches of government in Washington and state capitals.  

Finally, one last point.  Dems in the House have done a good job of messaging on the lack of action on job creation by the new Republican Congress.  Of course, the minority party does not get much air time on the news.  I just wish Obama would stop engaging the Rs so much when they repeat their mantra on the deficit.  

How hard is it to pivot on this?  "Well, reducing the deficit is an important issue, but my number one concern is putting Americans back to work.  Therefore, I urge Republicans in Congress to work with me on getting that job done first, THEN working on cutting spending."   See how I slipped the word job in there?

Or, "The last thing we need is more folks unemployed, so I urge my colleagues in Congress to only cut programs that DO not cause lay-offs or job losses in the public sector."

See, it's easy!