Salt Lake
City, UT – In advance of tonight’s GOP Presidential debate, Utah
Democratic Party Chair Jim Dabakis released an estimate of the number of jobs
which would be lost in Utah as a result of the Republican Party’s
presidential candidates support for extreme economic policies, including a
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution like that which is included in the
Tea Party budget plan passed by the U.S. House of Representatives this
summer.
The analysis
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 55,743
jobs right here in Utah.
The loss of so many jobs could sink the U.S. into a depression 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, State Chair Jim Dabakis released the following statement on
the report:
“The plans advocated by the GOP could cost as much as 9.5
million American jobs and 55,743 jobs here in Utah. It could possibly bring on a second
Great Depression and devastation for the middle class, small businesses,
students and seniors. Ending Medicare as we know it and slashing Social
Security is the price Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, 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.”
Link to
Report: http://my.democrats.org/DNC- report
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