October 26, 2014

Hillary Clinton was out campaigning for Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley in downtown Boston this Friday, and some remarks she made about "job creators" and trickle-down economics has right wing heads exploding everywhere, calling it her "you didn't build that" moment.

From Fox "news" to Twitchy, to Glenn Beck's The Blaze, to The Washington Free Beacon, to every other wingnut site in the blogosphere, they're all in a tizzy that this is their big "gotcha" moment for Clinton that's going to destroy her chances in 2016.

I'd say the similarities to the right's response to the "you didn't build that" statement by President Obama is true in one regard. This attack is just as cynical and just as ridiculous. It's also just as devoid of any context as the attacks were on President Obama.

WHDH has the entire speech available here. The video that's gone viral is a slightly shorter version of what I've got posted here.

Here's the full transcript of her remarks from the clip above.

CLINTON: Yes, and she will fight for the minimum wage. Something that is long overdue. And don't let anybody tell you that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs. They always say that.

I've been through this. My husband gave working families a raise in the 1990's. I voted to raise the minimum wage and guess what? Millions of jobs were created or paid better and more families were more secure.

That's what we want to see here and that's what we want to see all across the country.

And, don't let anybody tell you, don't let anybody tell you that, you know, its corporations and businesses that create jobs. You know that old theory, trickle-down economics. That has been tried. That has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly.

You know one of the things my husband says when people say well, you know, “What did you bring to Washington?” He says “Well, I brought arithmetic.”

And part of it was, part of it was he demonstrated why trickle-down should be consigned to the trash bin of history. More tax cuts for the top and for companies that ship jobs overseas, while taxpayers and voters are stuck paying the freight just doesn't add up.

Now that kind of thinking might win you an award for outsourcing excellence, but Massachusetts can do better than that. Martha understands it. She knows you have to create jobs from everybody working together and taking the advantages of this great state and putting them to work.

Last I checked, I thought it was consumers and demand that created jobs. Yeah, businesses do the hiring, along with government, but if you own a business, you'd better have some customers or you're not going to hire anyone. And as Clinton correctly noted, raising the wages of those consumers creates demand and creates jobs as well.

I'm pretty sure the right wing will stop talking about this around the same time they give up on BENGHAZI!!!!!
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