For more than four years, Republicans in Congress have been telling the American people that Obamacare will kill jobs, hurt Medicare, and blow up the deficit. That simple message helped Republicans win big in 2010, when there was not yet any hard data with which to refute the GOP's claims, but it should have been a colossal failure in 2014, by which time there was an abundance of evidence showing that Republicans had been wrong on all three claims:
Unfortunately, congressional Democrats have largely failed to contest the GOP's central claims about Obamacare during the 2014 campaign, letting those claims solidify in the minds of far too many voters. But while it is too late to change the narrative in the fundamental way that would have been possible starting back in the spring, there are still millions of undecided voters, and any last-minute appeals to them should make the painfully simple case that
the Republicans' central economic argument of the past several years has turned out to be dead wrong.
"The November 2014 election is very likely to be a referendum on Obamacare."
- Mitch McConnell
"What this election is going to come down to ... is ... ObamaCare, jobs, the economy"
- Republican Party Chair Reince Priebus
"We now know that Obamacare has been one of the single biggest drags on job creation since early 2010."
- Mitch McConnell
"Obamacare is a job killing disaster."
- Rand Paul
"We thought there would be ... job loss, and that has, in fact, occurred."
- Mitch McConnell
In fact, Senator McConnell, just the opposite has occurred. To use Sen. McConnell's words, what we "now know" is that
American businesses have added more than 10 million jobs since Obamacare was enacted in "early 2010." This represents a dramatic turnaround from the 3.6 million private-sector jobs lost in the previous decade as a result of the economic policies of the Republican Party (a party that Senator McConnell
describes, without a hint of irony, as "the party of the private sector").
"Obamacare is the most destructive, failed law in modern times. It's the biggest job killer in this country."
- Ted Cruz
"Obamacare is a disaster for jobs"
- John Boehner
One more time, no:
But, but ...
"We now have a record number of part-time employees largely because of Obamacare."
- Mitch McConnell, December 2013
"ObamaCare is part of the reason the number of 'involuntary part-time workers' has increased 66%."
- RNC Chair Reince Priebus, August 2014
"Millions of Americans ... have been forced into part-time employment.”
- Ted Cruz, August 2014
Again, the facts beg to disagree.
Since Obamacare was enacted, the number of involuntary part-time workers has been reduced by 2.1 million. Meanwhile, in just the past year, the number of full-time workers has risen by 2.4 million.
And the job gains are increasingly coming in higher-paying industries:
Stronger job gains are spreading to middle- and higher-wage industries as employers gain confidence in the economic recovery.
In July, for the second straight month, employment growth in higher-wage industries such as business services, construction and manufacturing outpaced increases in low-wage sectors such as fast food outlets, a UBS analysis shows.
This trend continued in the
latest jobs report:
The sector with the most new jobs was business services with 81,000 jobs added, compared to an average gain of 34,000 in the prior 12 months.
And while many economists believe the BLS wage numbers won't start to show a strong recovery until some more slack is removed from the labor market,
ADP is already picking up strong wage growth:
[H]ourly wage rate for job holders is the most telling. It is up 4.5% from a year ago in the third quarter, a strong and steady acceleration from its low two years ago.
Closing the inequality gap cannot be accomplished in just a few years following the worst economic recession in over half a century. But Democrats have laid the foundation -- a foundation that has been lacking since the early 1980s:
In Health Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality
… The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago. Over most of that period, government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality. The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s, while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor. Nearly every major aspect of the health bill pushes in the other direction…
Obamacare and tax reform: a progressive double play
[S]ection 9015 of the Affordable Care Act ... is the single most progressive piece of tax reform over the last 20 years – and arguably since the institution of the graduated income tax.
In fact, the ACA as a whole is notable not only for the massive benefits that it showers on middle and lower-income Americans, but also for the progressive way it pays for them – by increasing tax rates on wealthy individuals and large companies, eroding corporate welfare, and closing numerous tax loopholes that tend to benefit narrow sets of businesses and wealthy individuals.
A Progressive Agenda to Remake Washington
With the Senate’s passage of financial regulation, Congress and the White House have completed 16 months of activity that rival any other since the New Deal in scope or ambition….
First came a stimulus bill that, while aimed mainly at ending a deep recession, also set out to remake the nation’s educational system and vastly expand scientific research. Then President Obama signed a health care bill that was the biggest expansion of the safety net in 40 years. And now Congress is in the final stages of a bill that would tighten Wall Street’s rules and probably shrink its profit margins. If there is a theme to all this, it has been to try to lift economic growth while also reducing income inequality….
The health bill expanded insurance coverage largely for middle-class and poor families and paid some of the bill by taxing households making more than $250,000 a year. Attached to the final health bill were also education provisions that cut subsidies to banks making student loans, and used much of the money for college financial aid instead.
The financial regulation bill, meanwhile, would take several steps likely to reduce Wall Street’s profits — and Wall Street has created more multimillionaires in recent decades than any other industry….
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