Traditionally, during economic recessions, Republicans have been supportive of loose monetary policy. Not this time. Rather, Republicans have upbraided Ben Bernanke, head of the Federal Reserve, for even considering policies that focus on growing the economy and creating jobs. And then, there is the fact that since the original stimulus bill passed in February of 2009, Republicans have made practically no effort to draft comprehensive job creation legislation. Instead, they continue to pursue austerity policies, which reams of historical data suggest harms economic recovery and does little to create jobs. In fact, since taking control of the House of Representatives in 2011, Republicans have proposed hardly a single major jobs bill that didn’t revolve, in some way, around their one-stop solution for all the nation’s economic problems: more tax cuts. Still, one can certainly argue –and Republicans do –that these steps are all reflective of conservative ideology. If you view government as a fundamentally bad actor, then stopping government expansion is, on some level, consistent. So, let’s put aside the conspiracy theories for a moment, and look more closely at how the country is faring under the GOP’s economic leadership.

For, one need look no further than the debt debacle last year. That, alone, knocked nearly a 1% off of last year’s GDP growth. — m.guardian.co.uk http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/09/did-republicans-deliberately-crash-us-economy?cat=commentisfree&type=article