Scare Tactics? Biden Warns of More Rapes and Murders if Jobs Bill Not Passed

In Flint, Michigan this week, Vice President Joe Biden seemed to resort to scare tactics in trying to rally support for the President's jobs bill. How? He suggested that more rapes and murders could occur if the legislation is not passed.

The Weekly Standard has the video:

"In 2008, when Flint had 265 sworn officers on their police force, there were 35 murders and 91 rapes in this city," the vice president said. "In 2010, when Flint had only 144 police officers, the murder rate climbed to 65 and rapes--just to pick two categories--climbed to 229. In 2011, you now only have 125 shields. God only knows what the numbers will be this year for Flint if we don't rectify it."

The jobs bill equals saving police and fire jobs. Thus, pass this bill or you could get raped and/or murdered? That seems to be the new angle.

The Vice President's warning is all the more alarming when one considers the claim that proponents of the bill have no intention of passing it. According to conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh:

. . . the Republicans couldn't stop this [jobs bill].  If Dingy Harry could keep his caucus unified, the Republicans couldn't stop this.  Democrats didn't want this bill, Senate Democrats didn't think the president's spending bill was good for their party.  Senate Democrats didn't think the president's jobs bill was good for the country.  The president couldn't persuade his own party that controls the Senate.

This bill they've been waving around out there touting for weeks failed in a Democrat-controlled Senate, and yet, "Senate Republicans Vote to Kill Obama's Jobs Bill." . . . Now, I know the president wants to run against Congress.  But why not present a bill that would pass the Senate but get shot down by a Republican-controlled House?  These guys are the Keystone Kops.  I mean if you really, really really, really want this blamed on the Republicans, get something the Senate would pass.  We gotta bunch of lamebrain Republicans in there that would go along with something weak-kneed.  But he didn't even do that.

How many jobs bills from the House has Harry Reid defeated or just ignored?  What the headline ought to be is:  "Obama Tax Bill Defeated in Bipartisan Vote," because it truly was a bipartisan vote that shot this thing down.  It was a humiliation.  Obama's campaign is entirely negative.

Or take, for example, Megan McArdle of The Atlantic who has also concluded that the whole thing was never meant to be passed and it is “pure political theater.” As reported earlier on The Blaze, she has some scathing criticisms of the President's bill:

1. “But more importantly, paying for the bill with tax hikes–any tax hikes–is going to substantially reduce the stimulus this bill provides. Just as government spending boosts aggregate demand, tax hikes (yes, even on rich people), reduce aggregate demand. Providing stimulus through payroll tax cuts that are financed with tax hikes on other people is like trying to boost your household income by making your wife pay you to mow the lawn.”

2. “If the president were serious about providing stimulus, he would pay attention to the work of his old CEA chair, and pay for the jobs bill by decreasing the growth rate of something-or-other in the future by 0.2%. This is also what he would do if he were serious about getting any part of it through Congress. Instead he is apparently sending them a less-stimulative bill designed to be maximally embarrassing to the GOP–which by definition means minimally politically viable. ”

3. “But say it’s true. If it is, I really wish that Obama hadn’t wasted my Thursday evening, and that of 31 million other Americans, listening to a jobs plan that was only designed to produce one job–a second term for Barack Obama. I mean, I don’t blame him, exactly. But I get a little pang when I realize that I could just as well have spent that time bleaching the grout in the master bath.”

4. “… I think it means that Obama has given up on even trying to pass it; this is just political theater. Maybe you think he had no choice–I disagree, but I can see where others may differ. But either way, you have to be way more invested in Obama’s re-election than I am to take much interest in pure political theater.”

If the analysis from critics such as Limbaugh and McArdle is indeed accurate, that the drafters of the bill really have no intention of passing the bill, then why making the shocking claim that rapes and murders will increase?

Could it just be for the express purpose of making one side of the political aisle look bad?

Consider this: since the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate rejected the bill, the White House and various press outlets have steadfastly held to the line that the Republican party is killing job growth. Take, for instance, this recent Associated Press headline: "Senate Republicans vote to kill Obama's jobs bill."

Nevertheless, and in the face of this heavy-handed criticism, Republican leaders have refused to acknowledge that there is any merit to the jobs bill.

“Republicans will continue to seek out any Democrat who's more interested in jobs than in political posturing and work with them on bipartisan legislation like the trade bills we'll vote on tonight,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said in a recent thetimesherald.com article.

“What we will not do, though, is vote in favor of any more misguided stimulus bills because some bill writer slapped the word ‘Jobs’ on the cover page,” he said.