Our guest blogger is Sabina Dewan, Associate Director of International Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

House Republicans are on a roll, doing everything in their power to mar job creation and to pull out the rug from underneath millions of American workers already struggling to make ends meet in these tough economic times. This week, they proposed a $93 million (17 percent) cut from the International Trade Administration’s budget, most of which goes toward the National Export Initiative –- an initiative seeking to double US exports in five years from 1.5 trillion at the beginning of 2010 to $3 trillion by 2015. This initiative is aimed at supporting 2 million American jobs, and increasing the presence of our small and medium businesses in overseas markets.

But that’s not all. Not only do House Republicans want to cut spending for a program that seeks to create jobs, but they also want to disadvantage thousands of workers that have been affected by the restructuring of the economy that comes with trade.

House Republicans are proposing to cut $2 billion (51 percent) for job training programs that will help unemployed workers play an active role in retooling their skills to be productive members of the economy. What more some conservatives are now holding the extension of Trade Adjustment Assistance hostage until the White House moves on the pending free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.

The merits or demerits of these particular agreements aside, trade is complicated and it is anything but free — its benefits come at a cost. On the one hand, increasingly open and unrestricted trade in goods and services contributes to economic growth. Trade allows consumers to enjoy greater variety and cheaper goods. But on the other hand, trade sets off a restructuring of economic activity favoring some sectors and industries over others. In the process, some workers gain jobs while others loose them; some workers see their wages rise while others see them stagnate or worse, decline.

But the conservative schizophrenia on trade — pulling funding for the National Export Initiative designed to support American jobs, while threatening to let Trade Adjustment Assistance expire unless the administration ‘moves’ other trade agreements amounts to little more than a conservative anti-jobs and anti-worker agenda.

We have to harness the benefits of trade while giving workers the tools to readjust to changes in the economic landscape that come with trade. Reducing the deficit and making America more competitive entails creating just jobs and investing in our workers.

Earlier today, ThinkProgress published an exclusive report that the law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a right-wing trade association representing big business, is working with set of “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress. According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Attorneys for the firm solicited a set of private security firms — HBGary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team Themis) — to develop a sabotage campaign against progressive groups and labor unions, including ThinkProgress, the labor coalition Change to Win, SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com.

New emails reveal that the private spy company investigated the families and children of the Chamber’s political opponents. The apparent spearhead of this project was Aaron Barr, an executive at HBGary. Barr circulated numerous emails and documents detailing information about political opponents’ children, spouses, and personal lives.

One of the targets was Mike Gehrke, a former staffer with Change to Win. Among the information circulated about Gehrke was the specific “Jewish church” he attended and a link to pictures of his wife and two children (sensitive information was redacted by ThinkProgress):

Another target was Brad Friedman, co-founder of The Brad Blog. Barr’s profile of Freidman included information about his life partner and his home address (sensitive information redacted by ThinkProgress):

This tactic of targeting opponents’ personal lives and family was not simply a random event. Rather, it was a concerted and deliberate effort to use anything possible to smear the Chamber’s political opponents. To dramatize his firm’s intimidation tactics, Barr sent an email to Hunton & Williams attorney John Woods that contained personal details about fellow Hunton attorney Richard Wyatt, who was representing the Chamber. The email was intended to show Woods and Wyatt how “vulnerable” they are:

ThinkProgress will continue to report on this developing story as more details emerge.

- With reporting from Lee Fang

House Republicans on the Budget Committee spent a hearing yesterday scolding Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for instituting what’s known as quantitative easing — or QE2 — in an attempt to entice consumers and businesses into spending and spurring economic growth. With interest rates already at the zero bound, and the prospects of further fiscal stimulus coming from the Congress virtually non-existent, QE2 — which involves the Federal Reserve purchasing long-term Treasury bonds to push down interest rates — is essentially the last policy option that the federal government has to try to increase the sluggish rate of job growth.

Republicans, however, fear that this policy will bring on rampant inflation that the Fed will not be able to control:

“There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens than debase its currency,” [House Budget Committee Chairman Paul] Ryan (R-WI) warned. “My concern is that the costs of the Fed’s current monetary policy — the money creation and massive balance sheet expansion — will come to outweigh the perceived short-term benefits.”

The Financial Services Committee’s subcommittee also held a hearing yesterday on the threat of QE2, chaired by long-time Fed critic Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). In fact, Republicans are so concerned with the threat of inflation that they are putting forward legislation stripping the Fed’s mandate to ensure full employment, so that it can focus solely on fighting inflation.

But is there any concern about inflation that would make it worth stopping efforts to boost employment in their tracks? As this graph from the New York Times’ David Leonhardt, the short answer is no:

As Leonhardt wrote:

Does it look dangerously high? Or might the slow pace of economic growth and the high level of unemployment be larger problems?

This is simply one more instance of House Republicans turning a blind eye towards job creation, in favor of picking ideological fights.

Update

Matt Yglesias has more: “Even better than look at current core inflation, nowadays we can look at the TIPS spread and measure market expectations of inflation over the next ten years”: