So reads a headline in this weekend’s Canton Repository:
http://www.cantonrep.com/topstories/x1446675959/Ohio-Treasurer-Mandel-kn…
No, don’t get all excited and think that The Empty Suit has actually come up with a substantive economic plan that will work. In fact, those of you with even a smidgen of political sophistication have probably already figured out what this so-called “way to more jobs” is.
OK, some of you are probably guessing “lower taxes on corporations and rich people.” I’m sure that’s coming. No, this article is about the other half of that failed Republican “plan” for creating jobs (for wealthy CEOs, that is): get rid of those pesky regulations that protect the public from predatory, polluting corporate monsters that simply want legalized all the laws they are breaking — the ones that protect people like us and that (theoretically anyway) protect smaller businesses from the unlevel playing field that favors the monsters.
But here, Mandel is nobly standing up for the right of his campaign don … I mean, JOB CREATORS … to poison our air and pay no cost.
Mandel, the Ohio state treasurer, argued that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to slash emissions of pollutants from power plants will result in the shutting down of power plants around Ohio, costing the jobs of utility workers and making electricity more expensive, resulting in manufacturers laying off workers.
Well, I know from following the antics of First Energy that they are going to lay off workers and make electricity more expensive no matter what — despite recent record profits. Because this is all about nothing standing in the way of their greed, not even kids with asthma, for instance. Say, Josh, how much did First Energy put in your campaign coffers?
Mandel also — hold on to your hat! — lied about the alleged impact of some other regulations. Fortunately, the Repository points this out.
The real goal of the Republican ideology of less regulation has nothing to do with job creation, of course. It has to do with creating a lawless, dog-eat-dog society that favors those who already have money and power — theMitt Romneys of the world — and allowing them to block the way of those still trying to get ahead.
For The Empty Suit, it’s not about having a jobs plan that will work. It’s about carrying water for his campaign contributions, the people who would be his real constituents should he be elected. Let’s not let that happen.
While I’m on the subject, I was interrupted late this afternoon by my phone ringing, inviting me to join a telephone townhall meeting with Sherrod Brown. Even though I had a lot of cat hair to clean up, I decided to hear what he had to see.
A lot of the questions seemed to be from seniors, so a lot of his answers revolved around his determination to protect Social Security and Medicare (‘I’ll filibuster, if necessary”). But he also responded to a woman in the Mahoning Valley whose husband had been laid off from a bankrupt steel plant.
He responded by talking about working to get that company into a more structured bankruptcy to save some jobs, to make sure the laid-off workers get their unemployment and job retraining, and to push hard for “buy American” requirements (you know: those nasty “regulations” Mandel wants to get rid of so big corporations can get even more obscenely wealthy) that would prioritized projects involving tax dollars source their materials domestically.
Mandel doesn’t “know the way to more jobs.” Mandel knows the way to tired Republican talking points that didn’t work during the eight years Bush was president and wouldn’t work in the future. And while I could hear the concern, sympathy, and even pain in Sherrod Brown’s voice, it’s clear the only job Mandel is interested in is the one he can get next.