All three Evergreen State Republicans were part of the unanimous GOP vote against the just-passed stimulus...and were joined in doing so by 11 Democrats.
Interesting as that turn of events is, with the One gaining no support across the aisle AND losing members of his own party, Dan Gerstein adroitly highlights the real result to watch: how many House Democrats can be talked into voting for a much more moderated "stimulus" plan that is bound to emerge from a conference committee reconciling today's House bill with the no doubt significantly different version that will emerge from the Senate at a date as yet unknown?
That will be a significant an early test of Obama's "post-partisan" leadership.
Posted by Eric Earling at January 28, 2009 04:39 PM | Email ThisReichert and other moderate republicans not peeling away is fairly notable, to be fair. But for your desire to make this sound like a loss for Obama, you should know that a passing margin of 56 with a unified opposition is scarier for Republicans than for Democrats or Obama.
Obama's appeals directly to the Republican caucus may not have had an effect today, but hopefully even if the opposition party will lost most votes it will still be involved in the process. That is good news for America, and it a big change from the more partisan Bush administration.
Posted by: John Jensen on January 28, 2009 04:48 PMOf course, once it gets to the Senate all those moderate idiots (McCain) will likely stab us all in back again and negate this bit of progress.
Posted by: Kato on January 28, 2009 04:50 PMYou are wrong. Going along with Obama will not help the GOP. The D's never cooperated with Bush and it didn't hurt them. A political party needs to stand up for it's principles (to the extent they have any, at least).
When all this socialist idiocy fails, we will then have a chance to once again make the case for lower taxes and more limited government. I am not interested in and Obama-Lite GOP.
Posted by: Kato on January 28, 2009 04:56 PMThe GOP is going further down the tubes. Here is the latest Gallup data:
There are only 5 states with a statistically significant GOP advantage - all the rest are toss-ups or majority democratic. the picture looks bleak for the party of whiners. Look at the picture and weep:
Link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/114016/State-States-Political-Party-Affiliation.aspx
Posted by: correctnotright on January 28, 2009 05:04 PMI'd place the blame for this one on Pelosi.
I don't know that I view it as a "loser" for Obama. House R's needed to cast an initial vote "no" for a variety of reasons, House D's just needed to get their package through to hash out with the Senate.
As I indicated, the real test for Obama comes in passing a final package, which will look different than the bill passed today. I think what today's vote shows, with unified GOP opposition and 11 Dems jumping ship, is that legislators worry less about the coattails of people adored by the press and more about what their own constituents are going to think.
Posted by: Eric Earling on January 28, 2009 05:11 PMThat's actually not true. Had a few D's played ball on national security issues and judges, several of them would have not lost in '02 or '04.
That said, there was zero downside to a "no" vote on this one. The bill simply won't stimulate. Anyone with half a brain knows it and it's easy to explain to the voters why it won't and what's wrong with it. They can run ads against every D for every idiotic pork barrel idea in this bill, which is the majority of the bill.
The public likes the idea of "stimulous" but they don't like big government spending anymore then they ever have. D's beat the Republicans upside the head with this, and unfortunately, all the R's could do is say that the D's would be worse. This is absolutely true, but not very compelling.
But when the D's criticize you for drinking an entire six pack, and then proceed to down an entire fifth of scotch, it doesn't look right to all but the most hardcore partisans.
I seriously can't figure out how the D's actually think this is a winner politically. It might be if there was a surplus, or even a small deficit. but when you run against deficits for 4 years and then double what you already said was outrageous, its awfully hard to explain.
...and so commences the 2nd term of Jimmy Carter.
Posted by: Rick D. on January 28, 2009 06:12 PMI don't know what will help the GOP or won't. I'm saying that the state of the GOP is such that Democrats can win without their votes on many "controversial" issues -- which isn't really a bad position to be in. And they both still had the optics of bipartisanship this week. (More tangibly, some of the GOP criticisms about certain programs saw those programs get removed. Those are actual concessions, even with the parliamentary upper hand.)
I'm not saying "take it or leave it," I was just pointing out that if the party had a stronger standing in congress the stimulus bill probably would have gotten the moderate Republican votes -- except most moderate Republicans have been replaced with Democrats in '06 and '08.
Eric @ 7: As I indicated, the real test for Obama comes in passing a final package, which will look different than the bill passed today.
You think the Senate version is going to be the toned down one? There are plenty of moderate republicans in the Senate -- cloture and passage simply isn't an issue. I see no reason why the Senate version would offer significant concessions to Republicans, especially after a partisan House vote.
Your comments about Dems "jumping ship" are poorly chosen. Six of those 11 congressmen won seats that were held by Republicans. Five of those won in either the 2006 and 2008 elections. Dems have a larger caucus, with more diversity in political ideology -- for better or worse. And for all the talk about 11 "jumping ship," let's remember that Democrats have gained 52 seats in the last two cycles.
Posted by: John Jensen on January 28, 2009 06:38 PMI guess that depends on what generation you're talking about, John. That safety net of SSI is sure working out for us future generations isn't it? Gotta love those Government programs, afterall, it's the easiest way to enslave a people voluntarily.
Posted by: Rick D. on January 28, 2009 07:33 PMwe can't have everything on the shelf; we can't take in all the world's people and promise all; like our home budgets, we must live prudently; i blame ALL elected's who do not think of the big picture and our survival FIRST;
again--i bleat like a goat--politicians do NOT run their OWN private side consulting and lobbying businesses like THIS! hold their feet to the fire--vigilance--we all are in a lifeboat--forget piking the bottom just to make a D or R point!!! we all will go down...
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on January 28, 2009 08:33 PMUntil those "controversial" issues show they are a massive failure... then the Dumbs have no one to blame but themselves and the GOP can (and will) use it for campaign fodder... which is exactly why Bambi was on the Hill making "bipartisan" noises.
Personally I hope the GOP does exactly this on each and every "controversial" issue Bambi and the enablers put forth. MAKE the Dumbs put themselves on the line ALONE. Make every news announcer say "with the GOP standing in stark opposition voting "NO!"" time after time after time. It's a win/win for the GOP: They don't have the votes to be obstructionist so they can't be blamed for a fail, they can prove their manhood to the conservatives and when the product of their "NO" fails they can claim innocence AND credit for knowing it would.
Hello 2010.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on January 28, 2009 08:54 PMMaybe you should go back and redo the math this time with the proper data. 4-5 million jobs over 4-6 years and you get close to the reasonable number plus added inflation.
Posted by: correctnotright on January 28, 2009 08:59 PMHow does STD prevention "create jobs"?
How does $2.1 billion for Head Start and $2 billion for Child Care Development Block Grants "create jobs"? Revive economic growth through the federal government spending billions on babysitting?
And as far as IncorrectAndAlwaysWrong and his 7 year excuse... read it and weep, little one. ...or look at the pictures... of YOUR self-serving crooks...er, pols.
Hope!
Change!
Blame!
2010!
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on January 28, 2009 09:18 PMThe GOP is only good for one thing these days. Wasting Obama's time. They had already decided to vote party line no before they met with him. Nice to know that during this crisis, the GOP is only interested in wasting the time of our president.
I love how the nuts want to blame fannie and freddie for this housing mess, while the other 99% of the cause of the collapse has to be ignored.
Keep praying Obama fails cons. If America goes down the tubes then the GOP will be saved right? Yeah right. In your dreams. If you think the party of exclusion, hate, and intolerance is gonna make a comeback, you got another thing coming. The people foolish enough to believe their con game are disappearing fast. The Micheles, and ditto heads of this world are soon to be added to the endangered species list....
Posted by: All Facts Support My Positions on January 28, 2009 09:23 PMA half century ago, the United States was an industrial colossus -- a great monument to the productive potential of a free people. Moreover, with the advent of safe, abundant, and astonishingly inexpensive nuclear energy coupled with initial rapid advances in micro science and engineering, America was poised for another, even more spectacular era of advance. If this advance had been allowed to take place, Americans could have led all of the world's people into a wonderful period of progress and prosperity, orders of magnitude beyond anything the world has ever known -- and, as things stand now, may ever know.
What happened? We allowed government to take away too much of our freedom.
While we see around us bits and pieces of the possible technological advance that survived, most of the new world beyond the door that opened to mankind during that period is now hidden from us. The door closed before we could pass through it.
We walked on the moon, but could travel no further. We began the transition to nuclear energy, but then abruptly stopped. We devised technology that could have revolutionized human medicine, but then did not apply that technology. America is littered from one end to the other with the dreams of free productive people -- dreams that those people were prevented from bringing to reality.
Not only did we fail to advance, but we slid backwards. Our astronauts retreated from the moon to hover in near earth orbit. Our industries shrank. Our energy system decayed until we could not even produce sufficient energy for our reduced industry. Our medicine stagnated and yet required more and more of our resources to maintain in even its primitive condition.
Why did we cease to advance and, instead, slide backward? The reason is absolutely clear -- we allowed our individual human freedom to be reduced. The progress of past generations of Americans -- whose accomplishments still sustain our now diminished lives -- was not made possible because those people were superior. It was made possible because they were free. As Julian Simon showed, free people always produce more than they consume -- but only if they are free to do so.
We were not oppressed from without. We were oppressed from within. We allowed our government -- a government largely composed of people of little or no ability or real accomplishments -- gradually to build a system of taxation, regulation and control, and government-sponsored litigation that has destroyed our freedom. Nor is this tyranny based only in Washington. Throughout America, state and local governments and the monopolistic arrangements that they have forged with now pseudo-public industries interfere with productive human activities at every turn.
Americans today cannot even modify their homes, make and sell electricity, or drive their cars without "permission." And those who give "permission" can withhold "permission."
As American productivity faltered and then slid backwards under their yokes, our masters feared we would turn surly if our prosperity diminished. So, our financial system was manipulated to allow us to buy from other countries the things we no longer produced. They printed new money and erected upon that money an enormous pyramid of debt and other leveraged derivatives. Increasingly, Americans could no longer own their homes, but they could lease them from the government through property taxes and from the banks through loans. Loans, debt, money - money to buy perceived wealth. Money to bid up the price of stocks, commodities, homes, and all the other things Americans wanted but could no longer afford since their real wages were not also rising.
So, a nation of fundamentally impoverished "investors" --actually "speculators," or really "gamblers" -- grew up to replace a nation of producers. They were told that their economy was 70% "consumer" driven. Only 30% need still be producers -- producers who are very carefully controlled and suppressed by government.
With real wages not rising, there was a limit to the debt Americans could support -- a limit that was reached in 2007. At that point, the great government-created imaginary balloon of perceived wealth in the form of printed money, inflated debt, inflated stock prices, inflated commodity prices, and inflated home prices began to deflate.
The majority of Americans, however, are addicted to inflated prices and/or to the river of welfare payments being given to them by government -- paid for with capital that the government has taxed away from productive Americans. So, in 2008, they elected politicians who are committed to even higher taxation, regulation, and litigation and who promise to print enough money to replace the loss of perceived imaginary purchasing power within the balloon.
If they print so much money, however, inflation will destroy the currency. Instead, they hope that the printing of part of that money and the promise to print unlimited amounts more will "restore confidence" and lead the people to borrow the rest. In other words, the balloon of imaginary wealth has started to deflate. It is wrinkling. Government proposes to re-inflate the wrinkles with printing press money and to thereby convince Americans that all is well, inducing them to resume puffing up the balloon. As 2007 showed, however, Americans -- enslaved by government -- are out of breath.
This cannot succeed. The only solution to American economic problems is to remove the governmental taxation, regulation and control, and litigation that has reduced the freedom of individual Americans so far that they no longer have the ability or will to produce the things they need.
Yet, those who were elected in 2008 and the millions of bureaucratic retainers who work for them have no intention whatever of increasing the freedom of productive people. They fear the productive people whom they have enslaved and fully intend to bind them with even heavier chains.
Inspiring speeches and "leadership" from those who love tyranny will not work -- no matter how stridently media, academia, and other leftist institutions applaud. Only freedom will work. Until American freedom is restored, the balloon will continue to deflate.
"Slavery Party", indeed.
Hope!
Change!
Blame!
2010!
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on January 28, 2009 09:34 PMCan you type with a straight face and say that the pork in there is good for building jobs?
Also, I saw earlier..maybe in another post that tax cuts don't work....again you are totally wrong. The Bush tax cuts brought in more money that Clinton's tax increases....yes they did some poor decisions with spending around Dept. of Education and the prescription drug entitlement, but it wasn't all his fault the Dem's pushed for folks making minimum wage to get loans for $500K houses. That would be Dems led by Barney Frank.
Oh, and yes wars cost money....that did cost us money....I just wish Bush wouldn't have tried to be nice to the libs and not played with gloves on. That prolonged the war. Remember with war you either Go big or go home. Half way screws everyone
Posted by: Dengle on January 28, 2009 09:47 PMIf society works for all, we all prosper. If it only works for the top 1%, or the Wall Street execs that took home 18 billion in bonuses last year, and the rest of us have to work 2 jobs to pick up the slack, then how free is that my friend?
We are now looking at the end game of Reagan's war on the middle class.
Posted by: All Facts Support My Positions on January 28, 2009 09:47 PMThat's what Republicans have been saying all along!
Posted by: John Bailo on January 28, 2009 09:51 PMAs for the torture...have you been? Been talking to terroists overseas? If so, probably shouldn't do that.
Finally, if the 1st sentence is your way of saying Bush broke the Constitution..how about the Big 0 creating positions for folks (Climate Czar) outside the constitution? What he's done is illegal. Where is that position? Where does the appropriations come from? Why isn't that person being vetted by our Constitutional process? Why? Aren't you upset about that too?
Posted by: Dengle on January 28, 2009 09:59 PMUnfortunately, Harry Reid is just as bad, if not worse and don't have much faith in the Senate improving much upon it, although it won't take much to be an improvement. Bottom Line: Congress leadership sucks !!
Posted by: KS on January 28, 2009 10:14 PMSo, you are arguing that this means the Bush tax cuts were successful? Will more tax cuts bring even more of the same?
Look, the entire lack of regulation of the banks, 1 trillion spent on Iraq, 1 trillion spent on the banks with TARP and the tax cuts have led.....to the worst economic situtation since the 1930s - and you are arguing form MORE of this?
Posted by: correctnotright on January 28, 2009 10:25 PMAmerican CITIZENS vs American HATERS/COMBATANTS/TERRORISTS
Do you even recognize the difference?
If society works for all, we all prosper. If it only works for the top 1%, or the Wall Street execs that took home 18 billion in bonuses last year, and the rest of us have to work 2 jobs to pick up the slack, then how free is that my friend?
Classic Marxism. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
And you dare whine about FREEDOM???
Heil comrad!
And whatever happened to all those "businesses" you previously claimed to "own"? Pardon my incredulous snort.
We are now looking at the end game of Reagan's war on the middle class.
By whom?
Pelosi.
Reid.
Frank.
BambiCarter.
I just loved Obama's comment ( FDR didn't spend enought)
It didn't work for FDR and it won't work now. History proved that one.
The Rep's should not touch any of these bills and they well retake both the house & Senate in 2010.
Posted by: Medic/Vet on January 29, 2009 07:29 AMTARP was a travesty and so is this bill. Everything in it that didn't either cut taxes or actually stimulate growth should have been stripped out, and you would have had a bill probably less than half the size.
Good for the R's for opposing this bill. Hopefully the R's in the Senate will have a spine and make some major modifications to it.
Posted by: Palouse on January 29, 2009 08:13 AMHere is the CBO numbers on it http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=8116&type=0
We need to curb spending. With the wars in Afganastan and Iraq we are spending money, but that is a necessary spending to keep the US and our allies safe. You and I will have a disagreement on that for sure.
The 1st bailout shouldn't have happened and this new one shouldn't either.....especially this one since it isn't stimulus but a damn wish list of spending. THere is so much crap in that bill I can't believe any reasonable person would say so.
As for will more tax cuts raise more money? I would assume so. Of course you have to have a fine balance. Raising taxes will sure dry up the amount of money coming in as it will hamper the economy even more.
Business hire people and drive the economy...cut their rates and they will be able to hire more. Government only spends..they do not create.
As for bank regulation some needs to be done, but really do you want Barney Frank doing it? His support of Freddie and FAnnie and the dems policy of forcing banks to loan to those that cannot afford the loans is why we are where we are today. Greed in some people then caused them to hassten that along and if they made bad deals then they should have gone bankrupt.
Don't forget the purpose of this stimulus package was to give today's economy another shot in the arm- not a long term governmet spending package. As such, it doesn't do it.
"shovel ready"? Puhlease!! These projects are a year or so down the road at best when you add in the federal hoops these projects have to jump through.
Posted by: swatter on January 29, 2009 08:35 AMWill the Senate Rs hold up en masse? We'll see. And then, what happens after it goes to conference and Rs get some concessions? Rs stand tall or just give in?
Even after conference, it still won't be a stimulus (as originally defined) bill.
Posted by: swatter on January 29, 2009 08:39 AMYou own this budget busting monstrosity, Democrats. When you turn this recession into a depression. it will be all yours.
Enjoy!
Posted by: Kato on January 29, 2009 09:01 AMAs previously mentioned, the ''stimulus'' bill as passed by the House pretty much includes the socialist pet projects of every (D), living OR dead.
Fast forward:
When most citizens become consumers of government handouts at every level instead of self-reliant productive producers in a free society (which includes both personal freedom AND responsibility), along with becoming totally dependent on off-shore production of just about all manufactured goods, then we will be far down the road to following ancient Imperial Rome into the fading sunset. Imperial Rome more-or-less hung on for over 400 years; the way we're going our status as the #1 economic engine in the world is gonna fall way short of ancient Rome.
In any case: We're already way too close for comfort to the failed examples of hard-left European socialism; and things like this ''stimulus'' bill are going to leap-frog us even much further in that direction.
I would add that IMO the situation is not irreversible.... YET... But I do fear that one or more largely non-recoverable ''trigger points'' could be not that many years away (and at best it's years, NOT decades):
What happens if the Chinese, Saudis, etc. decide that we the USA have become a bad investment, and stop buying our national debt ??
What happens if after several TRILLION dollars of additional government spending we are still stuck in an extended deep recession for 4 or 5 years ?? No matter what else does or does not happen, it's dead obvious that trillon-dollar deficits are NOT sustainable.
The details of the answer to ''what happens'' are TDB, but one thing's for sure:
Facts and cold, hard reality are stubborn things.
By signing this pork-filled trillion dollar spending bill, Obama will have decided that 'ourselves' is more important than our 'posterity' who'll be left to pick up the tab...with interest due of course. I Wonder if the founding father's would agree with his assessment.
Posted by: Rick D. on January 29, 2009 09:35 AMHow's that 3 business you say YOU OWN. Bet things are getting real tough. Heck if Micro-junk it laying off, you must be having a hard time too.
Just call Obama, bet he has a few millions for ya. LOL
Posted by: Medic/Vet on January 29, 2009 09:50 AMHowever, I'd be more impressed - and they'd still be in control - if they bothered to exercise this new-found fiscal conservatism when they were in the majority.
Posted by: jimg on January 29, 2009 10:01 AMYou write:
"Guys, isn't it funny. The dem's blamed Bush for spending way to much (which he did) Yet now they want to go on a spending spree that will make GW spending look like a 5 dollars bill."
Do you understand the meaning of the word DEPRESSION? This is a depression created by the Bush policies. Bush created the largest deficit in history - and we got nothing for it. We got money wasted by the billions in Iraq. totalling 1 trillion. We got almost 1 trillion more for the banks - with no strings attached and no oversight. Now the rich bankers are giving themselves bonuses on the Bush dime (and my taxes).
so Medic/Idiot: Now that we are in a severe depression what private company has stepped up to hire workers to lead us out of the depression?
What's that? NO companies? Even the companies doing the best are laying off worker and unemployemnt is shooting through the roof?
Yup - private industry is CUTTING BACK. They are making things WORSE. And the republicans (who claimed on this very blog that the economy was "sound") are WRONG AGAIN. doing nothing will make things much worse. The free market is BUSTED. You republican FOOLS were wrong about the war, wrong about tax cuts - they did NOT work and they are wrong now. Tax cuts for people who are rich won't stimulate the economy and for people who are poor will be used to pay rent or debts. Tax cuts don't create enough jobs. Tax cuts are not the panacea for everything.
"I just loved Obama's comment ( FDR didn't spend enought)It didn't work for FDR and it won't work now. History proved that one."
Really - maybe you ought to actually read history. Hoover tried your republican crap for 3 years and it made the great depression worse. If Roosevelt ahd stuck to his original plan that was working - he would have gotten us out sooner - but he tried the balanced budget thing in the middle and it made things worse.
Revisionist (republican) historians: Create history to fit your false model.
Posted by: correctnotright on January 29, 2009 12:59 PMHere is what I found on the bush tax cuts:
1. "Data from a CBO report released on August 13 indicate that the tax cuts will exacerbate income inequality by boosting the after-tax income of high-income households far more than that of middle- and low-income households.
Based on the CBO data, the top one percent of households (whose incomes average nearly $1.2 million) will receive an average tax cut of approximately $40,990 in 2004. This is more than 40 times the average tax break for those in the middle fifth of the income distribution. The gap is dramatic even though this calculation does not include the effects of two major tax cuts that disproportionately benefit very high-income households -- the "bonus depreciation" business tax cut and the phase-out of the federal estate tax. The CBO study is the most comprehensive analysis available by a governmental body of who benefits from the Bush tax cuts.
The resulting increase in after-tax income is, on average, more than two and a half times larger for the top one percent of households than for those in the middle of the income scale. As a result, the top one percent will enjoy a larger share of the after-tax income in the nation than they would have received absent the tax cuts, and the bottom 80 percent will receive a smaller share. Economists generally believe that changes in after-tax income represent the most appropriate measure of the distributional impact of tax cuts, since after-tax income reflects the income a household has available to spend or save."
http://www.cbpp.org/8-25-04tax.htm
2. Here is the analysis of the results of the Bush tax cuts for job creation:
"The Bush tax cuts have contributed to revenues dropping in 2004 to the lowest level as a share of the economy since 1950, and have been a major contributor to the dramatic shift from large projected budget surpluses to projected deficits as far as the eye can see.
The tax cuts have conferred the most benefits, by far, on the highest-income households -- those least in need of additional resources -- at a time when income already is exceptionally concentrated at the top of the income spectrum.
The design of these tax cuts was ill-conceived, resulting in significantly less economic stimulus than could have been accomplished for the same budgetary cost. In part because the tax cuts were not as effective as alternative measures would have been, job creation during this recovery has been notably worse than in any other recovery since the end of World War II."
And we all know what ahppened to the budget, it went from a 150 billion surplus at the start of the bush term to a record deficit over 400 billion and approaching 1 trillion in his last year.
Tax cuts for the rich simply do not work, do not create jobs and do not help the budget.
Posted by: correctnotright on January 29, 2009 06:02 PMOriginally, during the French Revolution, right-wing referred to seating arrangements in parliament; those who sat on the right supported the monarchy and aristocratic privilege.
Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophies that considers individual liberty and equality to be the most important political goals.
Originally, during the French Revolution, left-wing referred to seating arrangements in parliament; those who sat on the left opposed the monarchy and supported radical reform.
Posted by: Acid Brain on January 29, 2009 06:52 PM
