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Republicans still in the driver's seat?
You have to hope there's a grand play at work in the economic recovery plan. Josh Marshall notes:
We're hemorrhaging 1/2 million jobs per month now - but the Republicans are obsessed with defending their ideology and the Democrats are obsessing with pleasing Republicans.
Hopefully, that's not all there is to the plan. It's clear that more of us need to advocate for a larger stimulus.
Crossposted at my other blog.
And yet the desire to get a substantial number of Republicans to vote for the bill appears to be having a big impact on the proposal's size and shape. Quite likely, leaving it too small and too tilted toward tax cuts to get the job done.Paul Krugman and others have shown the current plans for the stimulus are not keeping up with the growing crater left by Republican policies. As Krugman shows, economic output is down by 8% but plans will only cover 3%.
We're hemorrhaging 1/2 million jobs per month now - but the Republicans are obsessed with defending their ideology and the Democrats are obsessing with pleasing Republicans.
Hopefully, that's not all there is to the plan. It's clear that more of us need to advocate for a larger stimulus.
Crossposted at my other blog.
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If the initial news about the cost of the stimulus and what's in it did not mention alleged reports that this was an effort to please Republicans, would anyone have a problem with it? Is this genuine concern about the stimulus and the American people or pride of authorship? When will you be happy with the amount? When Republicans start a massive revolt against it? Do you really think that Obama sat down and said to his advisors, "first things first, how do we please Republicans?" or did he go in with the intent of creating an effective plan. Josh Marshall, Paul Krugman, all the bloggers, pundits, politicians and even Obama don't have all the answers and only time will tell if the amount was right. I've seen many articles about what should go in the Stimulus, my fear is that it is being treated as a cure all or our only hope. There are other bills, laws and programs that could be put in place outside of the stimulus that can help in the long term. Josh Marshall says not to assume anything (at the same time assuming that Obama's plan is too small), but I'm going to assume that Obama has put out this first draft with Americans as his top priority not Republican favor.
January 11, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a problem with the tax cuts. It is almost universally agreed that tax cuts are not sufficient at this time. Obama's initial proposal is 40% tax cuts. And, yes, I would have been concerned about the cuts and recognized them for what they are (a sop to the ringwing) without hearing anything from the MSM.
January 11, 2009 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
As much as people don't like seeing or reading or hearing this... but the idea of "bipartisanship" with the Republicans and thus going out of one's way to attract their votes is an extremely foolish one and if Obama himself wasn't for it, it wouldn't be happening. It is a terrible idea to go so far in pursuit of this goal by Obama himself and it is his reponsibility. If he wasn't choosing this course and didn't agree with it, it wouldn't be happening.
This decision to pursue the ass-kissing of the Republicans is naive, foolish and anything but a change. It's exactly the flawed, failed and discredited startegy that has been emasculating the Democratic Party for decades, which in turn has so badly harmed our national progress. Obama's advisors as well as Obama himself are screwing the whole country by sacrificing what is right and most effective for chasing a mythical pipedream of biparitsanship in Washington that never was or will be. It is a worthless political bragging point that doesn't amount to a tinker's damn.
Weak Democrats in Congress have been doing this for decades at the expense of the regular people of the United States. Obama, whose popularity rests on his being "different" than the rest, by his choice to pursue this worn out, failed strategy, is demonstrating that he is one of them and indeed not very different at all. Sorry, but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck well... maybe, just maybe it's a duck folks.
If kissing the ass of Republicans worked or had some tangible benefit for the people it might be justifiable but it has never worked and means only very bad policy and prolonged misery for our people just so the weakling Dems of DC can go about their merry way without the big, bad, mean old Republicans being mad at them. It's an embarassment really. Also, if this time-tested failure of a strategy worked we would be in political nirvana by now because it seems to have been the prime directive of most Congressional Democrats for the past 30 years! What the hell is wrong with those DC Democrats anyway? Do they like humiliation and failure?
Whatever the alleged benefit of bowing and scraping to the Republicans in DC there might be is not found among the people of the nation. It is found only on the cocktail circuit inside the DC beltway and is about as important to the average American family as the latest fashion gowns being worn by the glamorous ladies of DC society. The pursuit of this failed strategy undermines and retards every positive effort the Democrats wish to pursue.
$500 per worker? This is an insulting Republican-style slap in the face that won't make any substantive positive economic difference in the lives of the average American. Government investment is what we desperately need and we need to make it count. But Obama will then have the throways line of having "given every family in America more of it's money to use as it sees fit instead of how Washington sees fit." A time honored and thoroughly tested Republican line if ever there was one. Our country cannont afford this naive waste of resources. Our people need relief, not expensive symbolic olive branches thrown at the enemies of the common people who will only spit in Obama's face in return for his groveling and make increasing demands for appeasement while never returning even the spirit of bipartisan cooperation.
The $500 represents expensive crumbs leftover from the orgy of throwing good money after bad for years and then most recently in both the Bush "stimulus" and then the great $850 Billion heist for Wall Street that Obama and the Democrats so willingly and foolishly rubber-stamped last fall. The only real and lasting effect of the $500 pittance to workers will be even bigger deficits with nothing to show for it in the aggregate.
Krugman wrote the following back in August and it bears repeating with respect to this politically naive, unworkable, and just plain dumb course:
"In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country’s problems. It’s not going to happen — not as long as one of America’s two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy."
Paul Krugman
Aug. 7, 2008
This whole foolish strategy is also not terribly surprising when the key decisionmaker is surrounded almost exclusively by the DLC sort of DC Democrats who have been responsible for leading the party in the wrong direction for decades. It's just a shame Obama is more comfortable with business as usual in Washington than the vaunted change he campaigned on. I know many will say that I underestimate this man who is so smart and has this uncanny way of getting things done, etc... To that I respond: I'll believe it when I see it. I'd rather trust my own eyes than a wink and a nod from any group of Democratic pols in DC.
One last quote and it's from Bob Dylan:
"Don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters!"
January 11, 2009 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
We have two political parties that are wholely owned by bankrupt corporations and their bankrupt ideology. This should be a good time for some start up leadership to replace both but I don't see it out there yet.
January 11, 2009 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with this comment, but reserve judgment on the question of the posts title. A healthy dose of skepticism and critical thinking are required by all of us if we're not going to see the 'change we can believe in' co-opted by special interests. I worked to get BHO elected because I thought he was and is the best candidate for the job, but going back to an intellectual coma is not what we need right now. Doing so only ensures that the electorate's goals will be subverted to those of big business.
January 11, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, oleeb. Except you say that this wouldn't be happening if it weren't for Obama. Congressional Democrats have been giving the republicans everything they want for a long time now and would continue doing so with or without Obama. Dems either have no minds of their own anymore, or are suffering from stockholm syndrome from being held captive by the rightwingnuts.
January 11, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you. The onus is on Obama though simply because as President of the party in control of the Congress he is the critical weight that can tip the balance toward right or wrong. I think that, sadly, he's cut from the same cloth as the other Congressional D's. But what I hope for is that he will demonstrate real leadership and exert it on the most important issues instead of making a big display of looking like he's leading while really leading yet another capitulation of the people's interests in favor of the rich and powerful.
January 11, 2009 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
In response to the inquiry that you pose in this post:
NO.
January 11, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm hearing Gloria Borger tell us on CNN that this is Obama's teachable moment to tell us that social security and medicare cannot be sustained at these levels. Don't you love it. I guess the role of the Democratic Party is now to sell policies that Republicans could not even get past the public. You don't need social security and medicare people, it's endangering the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Watch your safety net folks! The centrists will sell out the middle class just like they sold out the poor. (You remember the poor, they were those folks that Democrats once talked about before the advent of centrism. They're still around. They are just invisible).
January 11, 2009 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those poor folks were our parents and grandparents who climbed out of poverty thanks to Democratic policies and into the middle class. They want us and our kids back down in the hole we came from. Seems to me they had a tea party up in Boston once over less than that.
January 11, 2009 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
God Bless Obama - he's actually listening to all good ideas (including tax cuts). He wants a majority of the job creation to happen in the private sector. He knows that everyone is frozen right now and businesses are afraid to invest. He realizes that we need to give aid to both consumers and businesses. No one should be whining about tax cuts for businesses.
January 11, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink