'CBO Just Went and Fouled Up a Great Democratic Election Issue'

“The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has just released an estimate that an increase of the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour could result in the loss of up to 1 million jobs. (CBO’s ‘central estimate’ is 500,000 jobs.),” David Freddoso writes at Conservative Intel:

We already know that Republicans are going to campaign on Obamacare. Judging by the polls of several Democratic incumbents who have weathered anti-Obamacare ads, it’s working pretty well so far. They can also talk about the economy if it continues to struggle. So Democrats need something to hit back with. This (along with more or less fake issues like Mediscare and the War on Women) seemed like a good candidate to be that retaliatory weapon.

But now there’s a pre-packaged answer your Republican senator can use as to why he voted against (or failed to support) a minimum wage increase: “The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said it would throw up to one million Americans out of work, and I didn’t want that!” It won’t sway everyone, but it sounds reasonable and it blunts the attack.

Linking to a video by Americans for Prosperity, featuring a woman named Julie Boonstra who, as Ed Morrissey notes, “had satisfactory health insurance and coverage for her medications treating leukemia, until ObamaCare forced her out of her plan despite Barack Obama’s promise,” Ed wonders if Democrats are currently “stuck in Stage 3 of Obamacare Grief:”

Democrats shoved ObamaCare through Congress over the opposition of a majority of Americans largely by offering anecdotal arguments. That ground has shifted now that the impact of the ACA is being felt in reality, rather than hailed in theory.  There will be many more stories such as Boonstra’s, and Democrats who think they can defend themselves by saying they waggled a finger at incompetence aren’t in the bargaining stage. They’re in sheer denial.

And deploying plenty of magical thinking in an effort to both change the subject and convince themselves that this time, they’re sure Keynesian socialism will work, as Steve Green notes in his “Wednesday Dose of Doom & Gloom.”