Republicans don't intend to address the economy at their convention.  According to the RNC, McSame-Palin, there is no economic catastrophe. 

 

Tell that to regular hardworking Americans who are stuggling with stagnant wages, increasing prices for necessities like food, losing their homes because of greedy mortgage lenders aided and abetted by the no regulation Bush regime.

 

But the Republican Party, true to form, is out of touch with typical Americans and the damage that the Bush regime has done to this country and its people.

 

McSame's now sub rosa economic adviser, Phil Gramm said this recently as reported at ThinkProgress

"...Today, Gramm stood by his comments that America was a nation of whiners, but made an exception for McCain supporters. From his remarks to supporters at a Financial Services Roundtable in Minnesota:

If you're sitting here today, you're not economically illiterate and you're not a whiner, so I'm not worried about who you're going to vote for.

"When asked about his involvement in the McCain campaign, Gramm simply replied today, "I'm a supporter." But he may actually be involved in a more active capacity. Recently, he was spotted with the campaign's top advisers. He is also reportedly still serving as an adviser and a surrogate, speaking for the campaign.

"Maybe McCain's wealthy supporters aren't whining because they're set to receive millions in tax cuts under the senator's plans."

This was after Gramm "....infamously decried the "constant whining" of the American people when it comes to the economy, saying it was nothing more than a "mental recession":

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

"We've never been more dominant; we've never had more natural advantages than we have today,"he said. "We have benefited greatly from the globalization of the economy in the last 30 years."

At the listless, somnolent convention last night, about which David Corn at Mother Jones wrote: "Then came Fred Thompson. He pooh-poohed Democratic talk of economic hard times. "Listening to them," he huffed, "you would think we were in the middle of a great depression...We know we have challenges.....We also know we live in the freest, most prosperous" country in the history of the world."

And as Harold Meyerson wrote in the Washington Post: "Maybe it's a good thing for Republicans that Hurricane Gustav has abbreviated their convention. On an issue of some concern to Americans -- the economy -- they seem to have nothing to say.

"I have combed the schedule of events here without finding a single forum, workshop or kaffeeklatsch devoted to what John McCain and the Republican Party propose to do about America's short- and long-term economic challenges. I've found four panels on what to do about the Middle East, but not one on what to do about the Middle West.

"Then again, the Republicans here plainly don't believe that the economy needs fixing. On Monday, a New York Times poll of Republican convention delegates showed that 57 percent believe the American economy is in very good or fairly good shape.

"Republican silence on economic matters stands in sharp contrast to the Democratic convention last week in Denver, where there were close to 20 forums on "green" jobs, reviving progressive taxation, balancing the budget, rebuilding infrastructure, the economy of alternative energy and the like. The Democrats have devised a macroeconomic strategy for a beleaguered economy. The party's commitment to alternative energy and green jobs opens the door for, among other things, a public-private jobs program, a WPA for the 21st century.

"This policy does more than address America's energy needs. It also begins to grapple with American capital's systematic underinvestment in American jobs. Our banks and corporations, it's clear, have little interest in financing manufacturing here when they can get products built at a fraction of the cost abroad. With our private sector no longer creating the good jobs it did in decades past, it's the public sector, or the private sector with targeted tax dollars, that can create the construction, transportation and manufacturing jobs we need to build not just a more energy-efficient economy but also one that is more prosperous.

"These are the kinds of programs that Republicans reflexively oppose, of course, but what is the current GOP strategy for job creation and restoring America's middle class? The number of manufacturing jobs has plummeted during the Bush presidency, and the GOP's commitment to free trade guarantees only further decline. Median family income has dropped over the past eight years, and the Republicans' war on unions means that Americans will have even less power to raise their wages should McCain win this fall. Health insurance grows more costly and more scattershot, and Republican resistance to providing more coverage to their compatriots means more families will be stretched to, and beyond, their limits.

"For all these woes, McCain offers only a continuation of Bush's tax cuts for the rich and an ideological bias toward the very kind of deregulation that has wrecked the housing market. Small wonder the American people are fleeing the GOP in droves."

What we are seeing in the Twin Cities is the reactionary, right wing, authoritarian, theocratic, anti-American, anti-Constitution Republican Party, a great stain on the former party of Lincoln.