Really, now..is THIS the best the Senate Republicans can do? Roll out these five tiresome fellows to stand in front of the microphones to pontificate such gems as “It’s all been said already” (from the GOP’s new statesman, John Thune of South Dakota).

It is truly a measure of how intellectually (much less morally) bankrupt the GOP is that their messages from this ‘epic battle’ are:

1) You wouldn’t let us play with you..

2) As long as the Republicans were in power, Gov’t spending was in the 20% range America had “a vital private sector”. This will cause ‘the Europeanization’ of America. Boogabooga.

3) Your plan won’t work;

4) NOW, we want there to be transparency (even though for the past 8 years, we beat you up, wouldn’t allow you in the clubhouse, told you nothing and hid all sorts of nasty stuff in legislation WE got passed). Now we will hold YOU to a higher standard.

5) You didn’t leave my amendment in and I’m ticked off.

Excuse me? This is the best you’ve got? This is the leadership of the Senate GOP?

McConnell’s assertion that this will cause us all to wake up, speak three different Romance Languages, like 70 types of cheese and give up drinking milk at every meal is laughable. We won’t even discuss the fact that there might even be some possible benefit to us by mimicking some of the lifestyle, cultural and political realities of Western Europe (national healthcare, anyone – the French and Italian systems are ranked quite highly).

The other item which borders on the delusional is his platform that as long as the GOP held the reins of power in the WH and Congress – the private sector boomed. I’d like him to say that to the hundreds of thousands of people whose jobs have been overseas’d during the last 25 years (before the 3.6 million lost theirs over the past 13 months) – because the Rethugs made it oh so easy to do so. What boomed was the concentration of wealth among the elites that bordered on the obscene and the evisceration and destruction of the middle class in this country. If one takes the position that the job of the US government is to feed the private industry beast to the point of morbid obesity, then McConnell does have a point, but if the job of the US government is to provide the best opportunities for the American People, then he’s nuts.

That amendment that Thune is so incredibly chuffed about contained variations on one musical theme: Tax cuts…tax cuts..and more tax cuts (cut first three bars of Beethoven’s 9th – da-da-da-duh). Seriously – the whizbang amendment that he thinks is the saving of the US economy consists of:

– Making Unemployment Insurance tax free;

– Tax cuts for small businesses and middle income earners;

– Tax cuts on companies ‘repatriating’ (I love that word) funds earned in foreign operations. His measure of success for this one is that when they did this temporarily in 2004…Oracle used their money … to buy up two other companies in California and Minnesota. I can’t find out which two companies those were, so I don’t have any idea if they still exist in their then-current form, have been shrunk, closed or jobs transferred. I do know from my own experience that companies do not buy their competitors or companies with complementary product lines to keep them open.

Message for Senator Thune and the rest of the GOP minnesingers:

Making Unemployment Insurance tax free does squat for people who lost their jobs more than 26 weeks ago – they are done. They don’t have any income. Also, UI isn’t taxed up front – people have to come up with the money at tax time in April – making it tax free for people who still don’t have a job or who have a job that pays them less than they had before does NOT help them or give them extra income. The other thing is – in case you have not noticed: there are a whole lot of states (and the number is growing) of states that have to borrow money for their UI Trust Funds. In some states there are caps on what can be paid out. In other words, there will be people on UI who won’t GET ANY BENEFIT. So, telling them that this is tax free is a pretty sad item. Grade on this one: Worthless.

Tax Cuts for Small Businesses and Middle Income Earners: Giving tax cuts to small business when what they need is credit so that they can buy, sell, etc. is another worthless gesture. Middle Income Earners: see Tax Free Unemployment Insurance above. Not taking something away is NOT equal to giving someone something. Not charging people as much in income taxes does not help them get or keep a job. Smell the halupkis, guys – you want the economy to start rolling – people have to have jobs with decent incomes – then they can not only pay their taxes, they can pay their bills and start buying stuff again.

Tax cuts for companies ‘repatriating’ money – this is all based on an article written by a guy named George Sinai, who claims that there is a trillion dollars locked up overseas that companies COULD use for worker training, energy efficiency, and R&D. All of those items are wonderful business activities which should have been going on for years and years and years. As I said before…in 2004 they did this and the best example they could use was Oracle’s buying up two other companies. That was not worker training, or hiring, or R&D. That was asset acquisition – just like the banks started to do and want to do with the money they got in the ‘chicken little/the sky is falling’ gig from last fall from Henry Paulsen.

So, frankly, this is merely another example of Rethug whining – and frankly, for all their yelling and jumping up and down about being ‘the party of ideas’ and so on, they don’t have any other than ‘just say no’ and ‘tax cuts that don’t cost us anything.’

And those two ideas are not going to go anywhere…