Hurricane Irene, which hit the east coast of the United States over the weekend, “left an estimated $7 billion to $13 billion of damage in its wake — without even accounting for economic losses.” Though the damage was not quite as extensive as some original estimates, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has already had to divert funding from other disaster relief in order to begin the process of helping those affected by the storm.

New Jersey alone may have suffered billions of dollars in damages. On NBC’s Meet The Press yesterday, Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, said the hurricane should act as a wake-up call to policymakers to upgrade the nation’s deteriorating infrastructure. “We’re seeing, in the city of Newark, lots of flooding and problems because our infrastructure is getting very aged, and we haven’t had the kind of investment or the resources to put the investment into it to keep our infrastructure strong and safe,” Booker said:

GREGORY: You know, Mayor, I want to ask you something I asked Governor Christie as well, which I think is an important bigger question out of all of this, which is how prepared are we as a country, not just the city of Newark or the state of New Jersey, but as a country, to deal with disasters of any magnitude? On a week when you had Hurricane Irene, on a week when you also had an earthquake that is so rare along the East Coast?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, I’m proud of my president, I’m proud of my governor for both jumping in and being very, very pre-cautious by calling a state of emergency. It’s much better to be prepared for an emergency and not have one than have an emergency and not be prepared. But to your point, I’m very concerned in our country that we have not been investing in infrastructure like we need to. We’re seeing, in the city of Newark, lots of flooding and problems because our infrastructure is getting very aged, and we haven’t had the kind of investment or the resources to put the investment into it to keep our infrastructure strong and safe. And I know this is a problem from around the country. I’ve talked to many mayors. We need to begin to understand that investments in infrastructure is actually going to save us money over the long term. It’s going to keep people safe and it’s actually going to help our economy as well.

Watch it:

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, America’s infrastructure needs a five-year, $2.2 trillion investment in order to be brought into adequate shape. When it comes to flood prevention, the Engineers note that “more than 85% of the nation’s estimated 100,000 miles of levees are locally owned and maintained” and that “the reliability of many of these levees is unknown.”

It would take an investment of more than $100 billion to bring America’s levees up to the proper standard. House Republicans, however, are trying to enact cuts to infrastructure spending, while House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said any federal aid sent to areas affected by the hurricane should be offset with spending cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. (HT: Politico Live)

As Republican lawmakers held constituent meetings in their home districts over the August recess, they were often confronted for taking hard-right positions on everything from taxes to entitlement reform, sending a message that at least Sen. John Thune (R-SD) seems to have noticed. Thune said the main things he heard from constitutes was frustration over Congress’ inability to work together and opposition to cuts to social safety net programs, the Argus Leader reports:

“Do something,” Thune said Wednesday after a town hall meeting at the Brandon Municipal Golf Course. “Why can’t you work together? There’s a high level of frustration with the inaction, and there’s a lack of confidence in the country and the economy. They want to see us get something done.”

That’s one of the major insights he’ll take back to Washington, D.C. after the August recess, he said.

It ranks behind “don’t cut my Social Security and Medicare. I’ve heard that quite a bit,” Thune said.

It’s not surprising that Americans are voicing their concern about cuts to Medicare and Social Security, considering that the programs are overwhelmingly popular and that Republicans have threatened to cut them, most notably with the House’s passage of Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicare-replacement budget. Numerous polls show Americans oppose cutting these social safety net programs as means to rein in the deficit, while 63 percent say they want to see revenue raised through increased taxes on the wealthy or with a millionaires surtax. Meanwhile, Americans are frustrated with Republican lawmakers’ intransigence grinding Congress to halt, as Thune notes.

Thune’s comments are particularly noteworthy in light of the fact that Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has made criticism of Social Security — which he has called unconstitutional — a central part of his campaign. (HT: Rachel Weiner)

The Washington Post noted today that House Republicans “are planning votes for almost every week this fall in an effort to repeal environmental and labor requirements on business that they say have hampered job growth.” This effort is part of the GOP’s supposed jobs agenda, which, as Center for American Progress economist Adam Hersh wrote last week, is much more myth than reality-based.

“Across the board, the Republican ‘jobs agenda’ reduces demand, undermines middle class families, blocks development of renewable energy industries, and recreates the possibility of future financial crises,” Hersh wrote. And the GOP’s “jobs agenda” also continues the Republican assault on organized labor, with two of the “Top 10 Job-Destroying Regulations” identified in a memo by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) targeting rules having to do with unionization:

– NLRB’s Boeing Ruling (Week of September 12): On April 20, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint against The Boeing Company for the alleged transfer of an assembly line from Washington to South Carolina. Yet, not one union employee at Boeing’s Puget Sound facility has lost his or her job as a result of the proposed South Carolina plant. Still, the NLRB is pursuing a “restoration order” against Boeing that would cost South Carolina thousands of jobs and deter future investment in the United States. H.R. 2587, the Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act, sponsored by Rep. Tim Scott (SC), would take the common sense step of preventing the NLRB from restricting where an employer can create jobs in the United States. [...]

– NLRB’s Ambush Elections (Winter): This summer, the NLRB issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that could significantly alter current union representation election procedures, giving both employers and employees little time to react to union formations in the future. The result will increase labor costs and uncertainty for nearly all private employers in the U.S. The House will soon consider legislation that will bring common sense to union organizing procedures to protect the interests of both employers and their workers.

It’s clear from the inclusion of these two “regulations” on the list that the GOP is more interested in further undermining the ability of workers to organize than in doing anything for job creation. The first, for instance, isn’t so much a regulation as a federal agency applying a law — in this case, the National Labor Relations Act. As Dalia Lithwick wrote in Slate, “There is ample precedent for the argument that threatening to move facilities because of strikes is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. And certainly the NLRB might reasonably have taken a Boeing executive at his word when he told the Seattle Times (on video!) that this was precisely what motivated the relocation.” Enabling companies to move facilities whenever workers threaten a strike won’t boost job creation, but merely ensure that workers have one fewer tool to use against recalcitrant employers.

The “ambush elections” regulation, meanwhile, merely ensures that employers cannot endlessly delay union organizing elections. At the moment, “35 percent of all union elections are called off in the face of endless delays and often illegal employer opposition according to research by John-Paul Ferguson of Stanford Business School.” The regulation helps to ensure that workers who want to organize have a fairer shot at doing so.

Neither of these GOP measures will do a thing for job creation, but they will push unionization rates even lower, even though falling rates of unionization are correlated with plummeting middle-class incomes and skyrocketing income inequality.

During his presidential campaign kickoff tour of New Hampshire, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) signaled potential support for a temporary holiday that would allow corporations to repatriate offshore funds at a zero percent tax rate, far lower than the current 35 percent rate, under the guise of job creation. Reducing the rate to zero percent would grant the corporations a much larger tax giveaway than even they have asked for, as WinAmerica — a group of corporations lobbying for the holiday — has asked only for a “reduction” in the rate, not its complete elimination.

Not one to get outflanked on right-wing tax policy, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) picked up Perry’s mantle in Florida this weekend, telling attendees at one event that temporarily reducing the repatriation tax rate to zero was “the easiest thing the president could do” to immediately spur job creation, as the New York Times reported:

“American companies have sitting in the bank over a trillion dollars,” Mrs. Bachmann said. “If we had a zero rate of repatriation, by the afternoon that trillion dollars would be back in the United States. Do you have any idea of how many jobs would be created?”

If Congress’ last attempt at job creation via a repatriation holiday is any indication, however, the answer the Bachmann’s question is likely “none.” A Republican-led Congress pushed through a repatriation holiday in 2004 only to see it fail miserably, as corporations used the repatriated funds not for job creation but to pay dividends and buy stock. The corporations that benefited most from the holiday actually cut thousands of jobs in its aftermath, then stashed even more money overseas under the assumption Congress would approve similar holidays in the future.

Kristin Forbes, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of former President Bush’s council of economic advisers, said the holiday “didn’t accomplish it’s stated goals of bringing jobs and investment to the U.S.”

The corporations behind WinAmerica, meanwhile, continue to pay low effective tax rates and shield the public from information about how many jobs they have shipped overseas, all while they push a policy that would cost American taxpayers more $80 billion over the next decade. By endorsing a rate even lower than what the corporations are asking for, Bachmann is ensuring that the price tag on a policy that won’t create jobs would only be more expensive.

Center for American Progress Director for Tax and Budget Policy Michael Linden notes that “if Congress does not pass any new fiscal policies between now and January 2013, the federal budget deficit will dwindle to just 1.6 percent of gross domestic product — the largest measure of our economy — by 2014, and continue dropping. Similarly, debt as a share of GDP will peak at 73 percent in 2013 and then decline down to 61 percent by 2021.”

The decrease would be due to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the triggered spending cuts that were included in the debt ceiling deal going into effect, as well as the enactment of various policies that Congress always puts off, like the alternative minimum tax.

ThinkProgress filed this report from Ottumwa, Iowa.

During a campaign stop in Ottumwa, Iowa this past weekend, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) continued his assault on Social Security, saying it was no longer a “retirement program” but has just “turned into a tax.”

Perry is certainly no fan of Social Security. In his November 2010 book Fed Up!, he wrote that the program “toss[es] aside any respect for our founding principles.” Social Security exists, according to Perry, “at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government.” With views like these, it’s hardly surprising that Perry believes Social Security is unconstitutional.

Speaking at an Ottumwa coffee shop on Saturday, Perry redoubled his attack on Social Security. When a conservative voter asked Perry why the current administration was promoting Social Security as an entitlement program — a view that all but the most right-wing people hold — the Texas governor went a step further. Perry told the woman Social Security “was a retirement program” when it began, but “it’s turned into a tax now.”

QUESTIONER: This administration is promoting Social Security as an entitlement program.

PERRY: Who’s that?

QUESTIONER: The current administration. Especially lately I’ve noticed on TV that’s what they’re promoting it as. The question is, that what it originally started out to be is not an entitlement program, Americans who are working, putting money into it…

PERRY: It was a retirement program, and actually it’s turned into a tax now.

Watch it:

Perry went on to tell the crowd that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” and a “monstrous lie.” Watch video of the exchange here.

Of course, Perry completely ignores that Social Security has been, arguably, the most important social program that the country has implemented, causing poverty amongst seniors to plummet. Without Social Security benefits, almost half of Americans over the age of 65 would be living in poverty; with Social Security, fewer than 10 percent of seniors are actually living below the poverty line. Social Security is especially important for Hispanic, African-American, and female retirees.

Later that day, ThinkProgress asked Perry if conservatives should be worried that he’s tempering his hardline views on Social Security now that he’s running for president. Perry replied that he hasn’t “backed off anything” in his book, despite efforts from his campaign to walk back the governor’s view that Social Security is unconstitutional.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that three in five Americans don’t want to see Social Security benefits cut, including a plurality of Republicans.