MADISON – Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate today released an estimate of the number of jobs which would be lost in Wisconsin as a result of the Republican Party’s presidential candidates support for extreme economic policies, including a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution included in the Tea Party budget plan passed by the U.S. House of Representatives this summer.
As the candidates gather for a debate tonight, the analysis by the Democratic National Committee found that just the balanced budget amendment called for in the plan, if in place in 2012, would result in the loss of 9.5 million American jobs and 165,005 jobs right here in Wisconsin. The loss of so many jobs could sink the U.S. into a crisis the likes of which the country hasn’t experienced since the Great Depression.
This new analysis looked at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) August deficit projections for 2012 ($991 billion deficit with CBO options for Iraq drawdown, extension of all tax provisions and Alternative Minimum Tax indexing and accounting for the so-called “Doc” fix), and using the conservative Romer-Bernstein rule of thumb that 1 percent of GDP equates to 1 million jobs, concluded that if the plan were fully phased in in 2012 and nearly a trillion dollars in federal spending was slashed, the balanced budget amendment would cost 9.5 million jobs nationwide.
Because of the balanced budget amendment’s strict requirements for deep cuts, hard spending caps and a two-thirds majority to raise revenue, Congress would be virtually helpless to reverse the negative effects of these Tea Party Republican policies. Despite these negative consequences, every Republican presidential candidate, courting the extreme Tea Party vote, has come out in favor of a balanced budget amendment to the constitution or the Tea Party plan which contains one.
Prior to the Republican debate, Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate released the following statement on the report:
“9.5 million American jobs and 165,005 jobs here in Wisconsin. Possibly a second Great Depression and devastation for the middle class, small businesses, students and seniors. Ending Medicare and slashing Social Security. That’s the price Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul are willing to pay to appeal to the most extreme and narrow elements of the Tea Party. There’s not a Democrat or Republican in this country who doesn’t think we need to get our fiscal house in order, but what this crop of Tea Party-loving Republicans has signed on to would lay ruin to our country and is beyond irresponsible.
The drastic cuts to education, health care, infrastructure, research and development, higher education, Social Security, Medicare and job training supported by Republicans would cost us millions of jobs if the plan were fully implemented in 2012 and would ensure that we aren’t making the very types of investments we need to create jobs and be globally competitive in the 21st Century. The Republican approach is like setting dynamite to your home to fix a leaky faucet – and these wrongheaded policy choices are the result of a Republican Party which has turned over an increasing amount of power to its Tea Party fringe.
Americans want real solutions to the problems we face and they want a plan to create jobs in the short term and lay a foundation for long term economic prosperity. What Republicans are proposing falls devastatingly flat on all fronts.”
Read the full DNC report here.
