So be it? Not so fast

Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

House Speaker John Boehner this week complained that Democrats were “rooting” for a government shutdown. The Ohio Republican said that Democrats were willing “to shut down the government rather than cut spending.”

Boehner’s disingenuous comments are the latest by the House’s Republican leaders trying to sway public opinion on the budget. According to the Republican story line, they’re trying to do the right thing by reining in government spending. Democrats, they say, won’t cooperate.

Of course, that’s not so. Democrats haven’t been rooting or pushing for a government shutdown. They’ve simply pointed out the obvious: Republicans are threatening the nation with a shutdown by the way they’re acting. Republicans have taken a hard-line stance in budget negotiations with the Democrats — it’s either the GOP’s way or no way.

Boehner’s spokesman told CBS News that if Democrats didn’t play ball, they’d be to blame for the shutdown. That’s ridiculous.

The Republicans want to cut more than $60 billion from the current fiscal year, which ends in September, singling out items that cross their narrow ideology. And the budget cuts would create problems. For example, Republicans have proposed cutting $1.7 billion in school programs for poor children. The result would be the loss of opportunity for the students, and it could eliminate more than 60,000 jobs, according to budget estimates.

Boehner was asked Wednesday about layoffs of federal workers, which would certainly take a bite out of the economy. “If some of those jobs are lost, so be it,” he said. “We’re broke.”

The Associated Press reported that Republican Rep. Tom Price of Georgia said government workers “found their way into public jobs. They can find their way into private jobs.”

So be it.

Except that there aren’t many jobs to be found. Republicans in Congress may have missed the fact that the unemployment rate is still high, particularly in Nevada. And every lost job — whether private or not — harms the economy. Boehner and Price should know that cutting jobs means less money is spent on private businesses, from movie theaters to grocery stores, and that hurts the economy.

It’s ironic that Boehner & Co. made “Where are the jobs?” a slogan in last year’s election. So where are they? Certainly not in the Republicans’ economic plan.

Boehner on Thursday tried to soften his comment, saying he didn’t want anyone to lose their jobs, but he reiterated his line about the country being “broke.” If Boehner is talking about the fact that the nation is in debt, yes, the nation is in debt — and has been for many decades and it skyrocketed under the previous Republican administration.

If Boehner really wants to talk about fiscal responsibility, he should look at his support for a proposal to build a second engine for the new F-35 fighter jet. The Pentagon says it doesn’t need it or want it, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the proposal an “unnecessary and extravagant expense.” The president called it wasteful — it will cost an estimated $3 billion — and the House passed an amendment to end the program on a bipartisan 233-198 vote. Boehner supports the program because it would mean manufacturing jobs for Ohio. And he opposed the stimulus bill?

Republicans are merely using spending and debt as ways to try to score political points. They think that voters gave them a mandate in last November’s election to strong-arm their way through the budget. But the American public didn’t give them a mandate to do whatever they wanted. Instead, Americans called on Congress to work together. People do want spending reined in, but they don’t want programs blindly slashed. They also don’t want bickering and stalemates in Congress. They want progress.

Cutting jobs and slashing budgets for the poor, who need the help, aren’t the ways to put the country back on track.