Mcjoan says “Maybe it’s time for Obama to have a come to Jesus meeting with a few members of the Dem caucus, Ben Nelson being at the top of that list.” I endorse that.
I also think Congress and the Washington press corps should listen to Nancy Pelosi:
Pelosi — speaking to reporters on the second day of her retreat with House Democrats at a swank Williamsburg, Va., golf resort — was clearly annoyed with Senate attempts to slash up to $100 billion in spending from the $819 billion package the House passed last week.
At the same time, she urged the need for speed in passing the package — and stopped short of saying that she’d insist on her demands during upcoming conference negotiations with the Senate.
“Washington seems consumed in the process argument of bipartisanship, when the rest of the country says they need this bill,†the California Democrat said, seeming to sweep aside the Obama administration initial desire to have broad GOP support for the plan.
The Obama Administration’s desire is to get the damn bill passed asap, and if it can be done with no Republican votes at all, then so be it. Unfortunately, the Senate will require some Republican votes to pass.
Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), said: “Her comment really makes one wonder whether she understands the concerns of not only the majority of struggling Americans seeking tax relief and job creation, but many members from her own party.â€
Are the majority of struggling Americans seeking “tax relief” right now? I don’t think so. “Tax relief” actually is pretty far down the list, except for right-wingers, who need to learn they are a bleeping minority.
There’s much clucking in media about how Pelosi and other Dems are being “partisan” for not standing around smiling and passive while the minority party ensures that the American economy remains bleeped up long enough for Republicans to take some seats back in 2010. Again, the beltway crowd sill seems to think that “bipartisan” means allowing the GOP to have the last word, even after they’ve lost an election.
We are reminded that John McCain is brain dead:
Day after day, McCain has been on the Senate floor criticizing Obama’s package with the core Republican message. “This bill has become nothing more than a massive spending bill,” he has said. “To portray it as stimulus flies in the face of reality.” He has called the legislation an “unnecessary, wasteful bill.”
I saw a clip of that on television last night, and it left me babbling at the walls. Dear Senator Idiot: Do you not understand that “spending” is the bleeping point of the bill? Do you not understand that the crisis requires getting more money into circulation as fast as possible, and only the government can do that? Do you have any brain at all?
I swear, if John McCain had popped out of the wall I think I would have thrown a lamp at him.
Anyway, it looks as if the Senate has agreed on a watered-down version of the stimulus bill. I think Congress should pass whatever it can pass as quickly as possible, but when Obama finally signs it into law I want him to go on television and explain to the American people that the bill as passed was watered down by Republicans and will be less effective than the bill he wanted. Credit where credit is due.
maha,
We’re beyond “bleep!” It’s not, ‘we are bleeped.’ It’s ‘we are fucked!!!’ Well, and truly, fucked!!!
Actually, tax cuts for the lower and middle classes make sense – if they’re not given as a lump sum, but actually spread out over weekly paycheck’s.
What’s really stupid, if not criminally insane, is what Nelson and Collins are proposing – cutting back on money for states. Great idea! Le’ts see, we’ll cut teacher’s, fire and police, state workers… Yeah, Ben and Suzie, that’ll stimulate the economy!
MORON”S!!!
The party of howler monkey’s has had one idea for the last 45 years – cut taxes. And so, like 15 year-old boys with an erection, that’s the only thing on their mind’s: relief. And since, with them, it can’t be sexual, relief has to come in the form of taxes.
The Rethug’s are bent on killing this country. And Dem’s like Nelson are helping them. Isn’t assisted suicide still against the law, or did I miss something?
And lucky us! We get to watch this country unravel like a NAFTA designed and made suit.
Don’t you dare start the Revolution without me!!!
Almost exactly a year ago, Ben Nelson robocalled me in advance of the Nebraska Democratic presidential caucus (our first ever), and urged me to attend and caucus for Obama. I know it sounds crazy now, but at the time I was torn between Obama and Clinton– it all had come down to which one had the better chance of beating McCain. (btw, thanks, Sen. McCain, for reminding me of the importance of that.)
On his bad days, Ben Nelson is a complete idiot, but if not for him and Susan Collins, there wouldn’t be a Senate stimulus bill at all. I suppose Obama ought to spare him some time.
So… the Senate bill is $780B and the House bill is $819B. I wonder if they can meet in the middle at a round $800B?
OT, but a sign of the times: this morning NPR’s Morning Edition followed Daniel Shor with Joe Scarborough. Rush Limbaugh wasn’t available? Gaaah!
I know NPR feels it has a public duty to provide regular opposition commentary to the current administration, but the problem with that right now is that the opposition is in disarray, and to put it bluntly, the crap that floated to the top has stayed there.
I know he’s friendly with Obama, but Chuck Hagel has stayed in D.C. to teach at Georgetown University– couldn’t NPR get him?
Sorry for being repetitive. I think Bill Clinton was brilliant during the government closings in the 90s when he made Gingrich & Co. vote over and over and over against the continuing resolutions. They were quickly seen by the country as acting against the best interests of the country.
We are desperate for good legislation. I don’t know whether we’re desperate for inefective legislation. But I do know what working with the repubs is like training a dog: you have to correct every act of bad bahavior immediately or they’ll know they can always get away with it again. It may well be worth a week or two to make them kill it then heap the blame on them for working to kill America.
Besides, after rolling over on the senate bill, despite the supposed support of two repub senators, we we really know that they will actually vote for the bill? Or are they gaming it like the house did last week?
Stand up a good bill, guys. Fight for it.
If I recall history correctly, FDR had to phase in his recovery programs over the course of years. Some of his early programs were infamously voided by the Supreme Court. Others just plain didn’t work, so the administration went on to try other things that eventually did work. Through it all, FDR faced rabid Republican opposition, and it may have taken him longer to make headway with the economy because he wasn’t a coalition builder.
I’m most worried that the final stimulus bill will contain more tax cuts for people who don’t need them. I’m less worried about programs that have been set aside for now. Please remember, Ben Nelson and Susan Collins aren’t the rabid opposition (see: John McCain). Nelson and Collins at least understand what the stimulus bill is meant to do. Money for government programs that aren’t “economic stimulus” in the strict sense may have to wait. This is called “triage.” But if the bill dies by filibuster, time will be wasted in which the economy gets worse and worse, and in the end we’ll get a much crappier bill than this one, probably co-written by the likes of John McCain.
Well here is what I don’t understand: if you can’t stimulate the economy with spending, than how is the economy stimulated? How else is money going to get out into the country? More tax cuts? How?
I just don’t understand.
Joan, you’re probably right. I’m just so damned frustrated with these assholes. They really need to be slapped down.
This from Hilzoy (after a lot of analysis; click here for the full post): If there are enough votes to defeat a filibuster in the Senate, well and good. If not, Harry Reid should do one of two things: (a) reintroduce the bill under reconciliation rules, which do not allow filibusters, or (b) force any Republicans who want to filibuster the bill to actually stand up in the Senate chamber and talk.
Dave S, I understand everyone’s frustration, I truly do.
As for the group that devised the cuts, I think they all believed they were doing a good thing. And trust me– as one of his constituents, I can say that Ben Nelson has been on that well-intentioned “road to Hell” his entire carrier. Perhaps his best punishment would be having to explain to Gov. Schwarzenegger, face-to-face, why the $40B “state fiscal stabilization” portion was cut from the bill completely.
This afternoon I was re-watching The West Wing as I’d promised myself I would do. In the second episode (originally aired Sept. 29, 1999), Leo McGarry (John Spencer) says to Toby Zigler (Richard Schiff):
Know what we need more than a media consultant? An economic stimulus package that doesn’t look like it was put together at an Amway rally.
In other words, as I think Shakespeare said: “There is nothing new under the sun.”
My understanding is that President Obama will address the country on Monday; the bill is scheduled for a vote Tuesday. It will be intersting what the POTUS has to say.
My guess is that Republicans are afraid the stimulus package WILL work, and by Obama’s second term, plans to address the deficit will be underway.They know who will pay, and it terrifies them.
I hope that Obama will say this mess was created by Republican philosophy, and if Republicans block reform now they own the mess we are in – until the mid-term – and he trusts the voters to decide if restoring tax cuts for the rich will feed or house them.
Slightly OT but I nearly swallowed my gum reading Murdoch’s Fox-ified Wall Street Journal this morning. “Greed is Good” by Roy C. Smith laments the attempts to limit bonuses of those on Wall Street and recounts how Smith, the author, “was horrified to learn that my annual take-home pay would be limited to my small salary, which accounted for about a quarter of my previous year’s income.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123396915233059229.html
He reasons that “powerful benefits of the bonus system, which helped make the U.S. the global leader in financial services for decades.”
Evidently he believe no adjustments should be made when the global leader leads other countries down the road to ruin along with us. Maybe he believes it is their fault because they should have knon better.
It is an incredible read steeped in self-aggrandizement, unrivaled hubris and bizarre notions of leadership only proving that some in the financial sector consider themseves indispensible. Well, we once though that air traffic controllers were indispensible too. Ronald Reagan showed us otherwise.
Behind all of this is real fear of having their salaries come down to earth. Without them making what they made America loses.
What jokes they are. It would be funny if it were not so pervasive.
NOTE: Roy C. Smith is a professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business and a former partner of Goldman Sachs.
I just checked Monday’s TV listings– “Presidential Address” is scheduled for 8E/7C.
As Arte Johnson used to say, “Verrry interesting.”
Pat – I wonder if Prof. Smith was the commentator on NPR last Wednesday, who hornswoggled my teacher acquaintance into thinking the pay caps might be “socialism.” No… can’t be. Anyone stupid enough to think the title “Greed is good” is amusing* couldn’t fool even Cletus the Slack-jawed Yokel, let alone my teacher friend.
*To anyone outside the WSJ’s readership, that is.
Joan,
On Monday at 8pm, “Here come DA JUDGE!”
Are the Republican’s scared? “You bet your bippy!!!”
I think he will have to do another follow-up stimulus, restore all the items taken out of this package and with NO tax cuts the second time around. He should then call the rights’s bluff and dare them to filibuster. Another few weeks of bad economic news and Obama should have them ducking for cover once the American people see them for the self-absorbed pigs they are. According to Krugman and Roubini this first round is not enough to build the bridge across the abyss to the other side. Krugman says that the US is in a deflationary trap and once it takes hold it is hard to get out of. Japan is still stuck there after 11 years. This will Obama’s defining moment. He needs to slay these dragons once and for all. The future of America is in his hands!
Joan, I searched NPR and don’t think so. There is no shortage of those who would step up to spout the same talking points on this. It is an ideology of self-interest that binds them together and they are like the hyrdra in that once one is discredited two rise up in its place. So the talking points and ideology which got us where we are has to be dealt with.
They believe any form of regulation is socialism except that which pays them money to make up for their greed. They don’t want any control coming with the the free ride they are being given, particularly salary caps. They will have emotion-laden terms for each and every form of regulation that they are confronted with.
I think this is a more fundamental problem. Corporations think they are America. Those getting big bonuses in the financial industry think they are America. Evangelicals think they are America and so on and so on. None in these and various other groups seem willing to discuss how they will fit into America. In their minds they are America and America cannot do without them.
By the time each in a long list claiming their interests are America’s interests there is shit left for anyone else. We might as well have the government give tax credits for knee pads so we can kneel and kiss their royal behinds.
Apparently no one is willing to stand up for them. It is going to take a lot more than salary caps on recipients of bailout money before this situation is corrected. We have barely scratched the surface with respect to what was done during the Great Depression.
There is a great deal of preemptory posturing and revisionist history being promulgated now precisely because these leeches know history and they are scared shitless that it might be repeated.
Seems pretty clear to me. It also seems clear that lines have been drawn so distinctly that the solution will not be bi-partisan in the least. It is naive to think it will be and though I supported Obama this cum-ba-ya, lying down with lions and contagious spirit of compromise is what worried me. These people will never compromise when their goal is winning totally. They do not compromise and the word is not in their vocabulary.
All this talk is arising out of some salary caps for execs of companies being bailed out. If you think that’s intense wait until we are in the thick of the health care fight.
They are worried particularly because the only thing that stands between them and their worst fears are jackasses like McCain who attempt to leverage voter ignorance with word games as if stimulus were not spending.
I remeber the first debate. Obama was very sweet to McCain. ‘John” this and “I agree” that. Obama stuck to issues and principle and it was obvious that for McCain it was all so very personal. He lookd like an angry, bitter old man.
Theres a strategy to making the opposition look like the biggger asshole. (I learned about that from Barbara.) Obama did sincerely try to be bipartisan. THEY drew the battle line. Obama can now make his case factually and let the facts speak for themselves. The elections of 2010 may go down as the Waterloo for the old GOP.
Pat, thanks for checking. You’re so right, the Gordon Gekkos are coming out of the woodwork over the salary cap. As for your other astute observations… complete agreement from me.
Gulag– oh lord, does that take me back to more carefree days! Can’t resist one more: I sure hope he “Socks It To ‘Em!”