Friday, when it was announced that the country had lost another half million jobs in the month of Janurary alone, the GOP decided to filibuster the stimulus bill in the Senate for the following reasons: Only 42% of the stimulus bill is tax cuts, the bill is just too big, it's not bipartisan enough, and they feel they are being unjustifiably rushed!!!!  They have chosen to delay the bill as long as humanly possible, via parliamentary procedure, completely indifferent to the urgency of the economic crisis, and all the facts.

Most economists now agree that our economy is sinking at an alarmingly accelerating rate towards a depression, that based on the "Great Depression" many of our economic indicators now suggest we are actually in the first stages of a depression, and that only immediate, bold and drastic action can stop the economy from sliding into a long, very painful and deep one.

The clear majority of economists are concerned that this stimulus bill won't work if it's not massive enough. Many more economists are concerned that the current bill isn't of sufficient size than believe that it's too big. The vast majority of economists also agree that tax cuts are the VERY LEAST effective method of stimulating an economy that's rapidly spinning toward a depression - the way ours is. A study just released by Moody's shows that tax cuts would garner 57¢ on the dollar LESS in stimulus than that same dollar would produce if spent on infrastructure.

According to Lindsey Graham, one of the most influential members of the GOP Senate, President Obama "has been completely A.W.O.L." in negotiations with their side of the isle. This claim is positively outrageous, considering that for the past two weeks the entire country has watched President Obama do everything but walk their dogs for them on our TVs every night.

This makes one wonder, just what WOULD be bipartisan enough for the GOP? Just what percentage of the bill WOULD be enough in tax cuts? Just how soon WOULD be soon enough for the GOP?

The sad truth about the GOP strategy was revealed last Thursday by Representative Jeff Sessions, who declared that rather than being bipartisan, the GOP should model their efforts after the Taliban. To quote Representative Sessions, "Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban." Obviously speaking about President Obama, he goes on to say what the GOP needs to do is "to disrupt and change a person's entire processes" and "to understand that insurgency may be required". He was simply repeating, in essence, what Michael Steele declared when picked to head the Republican party last week, saying the GOP would "knock down" anyone who dares get in their way.

It appears that the Republican party has but one goal. Following the guidance of their figurehead, Rush Limbaugh, it is clearly their profoundest wish that President Obama fail to right our economy, and that he take the American people, and our country's future, down the tubes with him, so they can then come back in four years and proclaim, "We told you it wouldn't work!" and pretend they had nothing to do with the failure. Proving once and for all that the saying "The only thing that doesn't change is change" isn't true at all. The only thing that doesn't change is the Republican party.

Contrary to Republican claims, most experts who've studied the "Great Depression" agree that any criticism about FDR's handing of it should be leveled at the fact that half way into his public works program, the opposition bullied him into reducing it by 50% because it was too expensive - and as soon as he did, unemployment shot right back up again, and the economy stalled out once more. Thank goodness the Second World War came along when it did, the Republicans say, or who knows how long the "Great Depression" would have lasted.

This leads us to ask a rather scary question... Is the GOP economic plan WWIII? Because tax cuts, their favorite answer to every problem, obviously hasn't worked...

And it would seem that a world war is the only other "effective" economic solution they could conceivably offer.