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The American Silent Majority should be proud of our representation in Washington. We have eleven members of the House of Representatives and seventeen Senators who actually subscribe to the campaign pledge of “country first”, even if the author of the pledge, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), no longer believes it himself.
Republican Senators including McCain have taken a “party first” attitude in a sort of weird childish temper tantrum. With many items which Republicans support being in the legislation, Republicans seem to have a theory anything written by a Democrat has to be partisan and wrong. Many, like my Senator, Jeff Sessions (R-AL) have stood on the floor of the Senate and made arguments with half-truths to support this theory. Sessions announced the only way we could pay for the stimulus was to print money. Printing money, he said, “causes inflation.” If Sessions had been in my high school government class, he would have gotten an F on current events this week. He is either being disingenuous or is ignorant in light of recent Federal Reserve statements. One of the primary worries of the Federal Reserve as this economy dangerously spirals into uncharted territory is deflation. The economy is SO bad right now; one could argue we actually need a little inflation.
Scare words like inflation undermine the stimulus’ potential to positively affect consumer and market psychology. Part of the problem is no one is spending money. Part of the partisan Republican indifference may have something to do with today’s ABC program This Week. George Stephanopoulos pointed out today, the Republican leadership believes the economy won’t be any better by the next election cycle. That being the case, a bad American economic attitude is actually a partisan Republican ally. In what may be the most partisan of ironies, they would rather the economy go farther down the tube if the stimulus passes. Cynically, a good start down this path is the infomercial the partisan Republicans are producing. It will help insure Americans believe the stimulus will not work.
Discrediting the stimulus in the minds of Americans seems to also be on the aim of Michael Steele, the new Chairman of the Republican National Committee. He tells Republican Governors like Charlie Crist of Florida they don’t understand the stimulus bill. He says those governors do not understand the distinction between stimulus created road building contracts and some other kind of private road building contract which goes on forever. In my 15 years of being a transportation engineer I haven’t seen many roads built without a government entity contracting with a private construction firm and have seen no contract last forever.
Finally, we get to the issue which gave the Republicans political cover to begin this nonsensical political war.
Apparently, in a sort of “thumb in you eye-we won” gesture, the House stimulus bill included items like money for family planning. I am pretty sure the Democratic House leadership understood how incendiary a provision like this could be. Why not leave it out of this critical legislation? Was it hubris, ineffectiveness or stupidity which drove the leadership to allow this kind of explosive provision? President Obama trusted this leadership with one of the most important bills of his political career and he was let down. With an American now losing a job every four seconds, I can think of at least three people who need to join those Americans. Those people are Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Democratic Caucus Chair, John Larson (D-CN). At the end of the day these people represent the American Silent Majority about as well as those partisan Republicans.
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Deb Cupples at Buck Naked Politics has written a Pulitzer quality summation of where tax cuts fit into a stimulus package. One of her zingers goes as follows:
It’s astounding that with such facts of recent history staring us all in the face, some Republican politicians are still chanting the old, worn-out lines about cutting corporate taxes.
Deb Cupples-Buck Naked Politics.
Her take on the GOP insisting on the cuts and Obama’s capitulation is a great read for anyone truly interested in making our economy better.
Nancy Pelosi should also read this article instead of the shenanigans outlined in my previous article.
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As you read this article at least 40 people will lose their job. 40 people like you and me are having the conversation with their wife or husband. The spouse probably knew it already by the look in their spouse’s eyes. After the conversation come the questions. After the questions, mom or dad has to explain to a son or daughter why they won’t be able to live in their house anymore and why they won’t be able to go to the same school anymore. As you read this article at least 45 people will be so disillusioned they will decide to put down the highlighter and not to open the want ads. They will have run out of energy to look for a job. They have already given up on staying in their house. They looked at the costs of COBRA and decided the only option was to try not to be sick. Yesterday, these people were just like you and me. They weren’t lazy. Some were the best worker on the line. Many were accountants, engineers and plumbers who were only a few years from retirement. But, a minute ago, that all changed for ten of them.
The ten who will lose their job as you read this paragraph may have voted for a Republican. Representative John Boehner (R-OH) is their leader. Today on Meet The Press he summed up his answer to those ten people who lost their job.
As you said earlier, there’s a $2 trillion hole in our economy this year. Government can’t fix this. We can’t borrow and spend our way back to prosperity.
He seems to sound like the jobs of those ten people will just be a sacrifice on the alter free markets and conservative politics. Then Boehner goes on to throw the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb on his website by telling people the stimulus package will fund contraceptives and abortion. Those ten people who voted for him may literally lose their house while he horse trades on “principle”. Those unemployed Republicans might save their house by finding a job in a rubber factory. Can’t he just walk down the hall and ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get that stuff out of the bill? Maybe, Boehner’s goal is to get the stimulus package he wants or just kill the bill altogether.
The ten people who lose their jobs as you read this paragraph may have voted for a Democrat. Their leader is of course President Obama. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) however was responsible for the abortion and contraception loopholes. She told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week that she had, “No apologies,” for putting those controversial loopholes in the bill. What the ten people who will lose their jobs while you read this paragraph need is a job. They could care less about controversial add-ons to a bill.
As you read this concluding paragraph, the rest of the forty people will lose their job. While the United States House of Representatives is interested in something else, their constituents are losing a job every four seconds. There is really no question among both conservative and liberal economist. They tell us a stimulus package is our last resort. Republican leaders seem to secretly think a stimulus package is not really needed. I wonder how many jobs lost per second would constitute a need for stimulus for Republicans. House Democratic leaders seem intent on sabotaging the legislation because they can. I wonder when Pelosi will actually be the bipartisan her President wants her to be.