Hartmann also cites a recent Gallup poll which shows that deficits and debt are a distant third in American’s economic priorities. So how have Republicans, who ran on “jobs, jobs, jobs” in November, managing to hijack the conversation? A lot of it has to do with the way Democrats allow the debate to occur on biased conservative terms, and “job creation” is a prime example.

Hartmann and Holland go a lot of the way toward dispelling this myth, pointing at the $2 trillion that businesses are sitting on because there’s no one to buy their goods and services. Again, this seems like the most obvious thing in the world, but no business in the world is going to hire people if there’s no additional demand, and conversely, no business is going to turn down throngs of customers just because of a 3% marginal tax rate increase.

Hartmann and Holland are close to the mark when they say that consumers are the “real job creators,” but the truth is, “job creation” itself is a myth. Calling wealthy people “job creators” is like calling a puddle of water a “plant creator.” Jobs, like plants, are grown, and it takes more than a puddle of water. It takes seeds, soil, sunlight, and shade to grow a plant, and it takes a similar mix of factors to grow a job. Where Hartmann and Holland are close is that many more of those factors depend on the average working American than on the wealthy.

To grow a private sector job, you need a product or service (the seed), consumer demand (sunlight), capital (water), a capable workforce (soil), and legal protection for companies and consumers (shade). At a glance, this looks fairly balanced, until you realize that not only do we (working Americans) provide both the labor force and the demand, we also provide a good bit of the capital (through our purchases, through retirement investing, through the usurious fees and loopholes we pay), we elect and fund the government that provides businesses protection (and bails them out), and we even think up some of the products and services that businesses profit from.

That $2 trillion puddle of water won’t grow anything without us, and the Republican plan to cut spending that benefits working people, while protecting the wealthy, will only result in an ever more bitter harvest. Already, the Republican war on the public sector has killed 500,000 jobs, the direct consequence of which is even less consumers, less demand.

Republicans discount government jobs because they don’t “produce revenue,” an argument that’s as dumb as the “job creation” myth. Government workers save businesses when they catch on fire, arrest criminals who steal from them, teach their workforce how to read and write, provide health care for those workers who can’t afford it themselves, protect them from having their product ideas stolen, protect their interests overseas, build the roads and transit systems that carry workers (and customers) to them…you get the idea. How much of that $2 trillion would it take to do all of that?

It doesn’t take a genius to see who’s getting a good deal here, and who’s getting screwed. It takes an entirely different sort of mind to think that the solution is to make that disparity worse. Most of all, though, mainstream media types, even liberal ones, need to start calling this stuff out the way Hartmann is.

Here’s the clip, from RT America:

Hartmann now notes that Fox News’ Brit Hume has taken notice of the possible strategy, and suggests taking a step that’ll really hurt Republicans: closing all those buildings named after Ronald Reagan.

According to the GAO, if the debt ceiling is not raised, the Treasury Secretary has sole authority to decide which obligations get paid, and which do not. Hartmann’s idea, then is for the President, through Geithner, to pressure Republicans by cutting off funding to Republican states and districts first, and let those GOP congressmen explain to their constituents “why their food stamp cards don’t work, why their Social Security checks aren’t arriving, and the road repairs are all stopped, and half their schools are closing.”

He called it a “chainsaw” in the budgetary knife fight.

The Blaze zeroed in on the “food stamps” comment, and accused Hartmann of advocating mass starvation. On Thursday night’s The Big Picture, Hartmann took exception to The Blaze‘s accusation, doubled down with his Reagan building suggestion, and also noted that Fox News’ Brit Hume has cottoned on to the same strategic possibility:

Hartmann’s suggestion about closing all the Reagan building made me laugh out loud, imagining the collective gasp from the many members and supporters of the Society Of People Who Want To Get Stuff Named After Ronald Reagan. Food stamps are one thing, but don’t mess with Dutch!

There are two big flaws in Hartmann’s plan, the most glaring being that no Democrat would ever do it. Democrats don’t play this kind of hardball. Their game is more like bocce, where you get as close to the goal as you can, without getting knocked out.

Republicans, however, would do this in a heartbeat, and so Hartmann has just given the next Republican president (Christie ’16?) another club to beat Democrats over the head with.

Either way, it would be a radioactive precedent, one that could be turned against either party’s voters. Plus, what about the Democrats in a state like Utah? Both of them would be hurt. Hartmann’s idea does, however, drive home the adage “all politics are local,” and takes the debt ceiling out of the realm of the abstract.

Hartmann debates the topic with a panel of two conservatives, a notable departure from liberal TV personalities like Keith Olbermann, and the result is fairly predictable: Weinstein says that changing the law won’t “solve the problem” because terrorists can still get guns illegally, and that if everybody had a gun, things would’ve turned out much better in mass shootings like the Mumbai attack. Halper agrees with stricter background checks, but says the solution won’t really be found in reforming gun laws, but by defeating the terrorists themselves:

Of course, both conservative arguments in this case fail miserably. Seatbelts don’t “solve the problem” of traffic fatalities, but they sure as hell cut down on them. Forcing terrorists to obtain guns illegally adds another layer or two for them to be caught before they can attack. The notion that an armed-to-the-teeth citizenry could prevent a mass shooting is belied by stories like the Tucson Massacre, in which armed bystander Joe Zamudio said he nearly shot the wrong man. In a situation like that, how is the average Joe supposed to know whom to shoot, and how trustworth y is the average Joe’s aim?

Both of these rationales ignore key facts, such as the fact that the most recent attempted attacks here were performed by just the kind of idiots who would need a gun show loophole to succeed. As I pointed out a year and a half ago, if “Undiebomber” Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab had left his poor gonads alone and completed that flight uneventfully, he could have picked up a pile of handguns at a gun show once he got here, and killed who knows how many people before blowing his own balls off.

Then, there’s the attempted Times Square bomber, who left his keys inside his makeshift car bomb. Since both he and Abdulmutallab seem to have received their teerror training from Wile E. Coyote, it’s a safe bet that guys like this might trip up while buying arms on the black market, but would have considerably more success at a gun show.

Finally, there’s the fact that the most successful attack on US soil since 9/11 was, wait for it, a mass shooting.

As Hartmann points out, Republicans have used the War on Terror to push through all manner of dodgy propositions, up to and including the Iraq War, but have no inclination to take on the NRA.

Unfortunately, neither do the Democrats, including President Obama. Despite the Tucson Tragedy in January, there has been precious little action on gun legislation, and despite a weak sauce op-ed in March that didn’t address the gun show loophole or extended magazines, the President’s efforts have been so far “under the radar,” they’ve been showing up on sonar.

Even less comforting is the White House’s reaction to Gadahn’s statement. HuffPo’s Sam Stein asked Press Secretary Jay Carney about it Monday: (transcript via email from The White House)

Sam Stein: Last week an al Qaeda spokesperson released a video statement saying something to the extent of a good way to get access to firearms is through gun show loopholes in America.  And I’m wondering how serious the White House is taking this statement, and also if they’ve directed the Justice Department to look into the matter.  And how do gun control policies stand — I’m sorry, gun control policy talks stand with the administration?  I know there was a task force that convened at the Justice Department a little while ago, but we haven’t heard an update since then.

MR. CARNEY: I honestly am not aware of the statement that you mentioned, Sam.  And I would encourage you to go to the Justice Department on it.  We’re very mindful of any threats emanating from al Qaeda and take them seriously, so I’m sure that the appropriate folks are aware of it and acting on it.  But I’ll have to send you to Justice for that.

Stein did contact Justice, and here’s what they told him:

Matt Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department, told The Huffington Post that the administration “supports closing the gun show loophole so that criminals and other people who are prohibited by law from purchasing guns can’t acquire them.”

This is the same President who “supported” the public option. When do we get one of those?

Furthermore, the gun show loophole is not an issue that you can tug and pull at for two years, like DADT. With a warning this clear, if something goes down, no one will care about overwhelming, unanimous Republican opposition to gun control, but rather, the President’s inaction. This is the kind of issue that he and the Democrats needs to make a lot of noise on, and go down fighting hard, if need be. The Democrats, and Obama in particular, have been slow to learn that even if you don’t have the votes, taking the vote matters.

For instance, whereas the Globe features a month’s worth of giant photos from Afghanistan, HuffPo opted for Lohan at the “Rock the Kasbah event Monday night in Los Angeles,” followed by Sting from a Tuesday night book party. Guaranteed to drive web traffic, The Big Picture’s first pic(k) was a savvy one, as a high resolution image of the starlet reveals far more than you’d expect from a 23-year-old.

We’re taking bets on who The Huffington Post will feature tomorrow, but our money’s on a real looker, to counter Lohan’s vaguely unflattering portrayal or Sting’s neutral appearance. With this new feature, The Huffington Post wins with clicks, and the real losers are the makeup artists to the stars — now under more pressure than ever.

Check out The Big Picture here.