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GOP wants American agony to continue unabated until they can drive Obama out.

Congressional Republicans are determined to keep the economy in the dumps through election day. Let there be no further doubt about it. It’s a cynical game that Boehner, O’Connell and other top Republicans are playing, and their end goal is perfectly clear.

By stating that the Federal Reserve should take no further action on lowering the interest rate during these difficult times for all, the message was fairly clear. Any attempts to spur job growth will be met with stiff GOP resistance. After all, Mitch McConnell put it succinctly a few months ago when stating that their “number one” goal is to get Obama out of the White House. The needs and wishes of the American people apparently rate a poor six or seven on McConnell’s scale.

In advance of a key meeting of the Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee, top Republicans wrote Ben Bernanke a letter stating that, ”we have serious concerns that further intervention by the Federal Reserve could exacerbate current problems or further harm the U.S. Economy.”

Most analysts interpreted this as meaning, “we have serious concerns that further intervention by the Federal Reserve may actually improve the situation thereby threatening our majority status in the next term of congress.”

It is not common practice for a political party to try to strong-arm the Fed. It doesn’t sit well with those observing time-honored practices. When Robert Reich was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, he says, “it was considered a serious breach of etiquette—not to say potentially economically disastrous—even to comment publicly about the Fed. Everyone understood how important it is to shield the nation’s central bank from politics.”

Meanwhile, top Republicans believe they can block Obama’s jobs bill. That would leave the Fed as the only trick they must still win to stall any meaningful improvement in the economy so they can succeed at job “number one.”

Do you ever get the feeling that the GOP just isn’t really that into your personal situation?

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