Independent Study Confirms GOP Budget Cuts Would Kill 700,000 Jobs

The GOP is totally screwed on employment: they've been foaming at the mouth talking about job creation, but spent the entirety of their time in Congress thus far attacking women and social programs. And we already knew their budget plan was problematic, but the writing's fully on the wall: the Plum Line reports that the second independent study thus far has confirmed that their proposed budget plan would not create jobs, but would in face decimate 700,000 of them. In a new report echoing a confidential Goldman Sachs missive to its clients, Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi warns that the GOP numbers will undermine stimulus and even further weaken the economy. Greg Sargent:

Now, Zandi will of course be dismissed in some quarters because he has aggressively defended the stimulus. But this is the second outside analysis to reach this conclusion. Last week Goldman Sachs, in a confidential report to clients, concluded that House GOP budget cuts would be a drag on the economy and cut economic growth by rougly two percent of GDP.

Reacting to the Goldman Sachs report, Senator Chuck Schumer remarked that it "puts a dagger through the heart" of the GOP's "cut and grow fantasy." Expect more along these lines today.

Even if you disagree with these analyses, you'd think the fact that there are now two of them reaching similar conclusions would newsworthy enough to break through the din of Beltway deficit-reduction fetishizing. The argument about budet cuts is too often framed solely as an argument between so-called deficit "hawks" and "doves," as a dispute between those who say steep cuts are necessary and those who say they're cruel and extreme. The fact that outside analysts think that budget cuts could actively hamper the recovery deserves to be part of the discussion.

[Sources : AltarNet]