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February 06, 2009

2/6: Stimulus Wars

The economic stimulus bill continues to dominate the conversation in the political blogosphere. Conservative bloggers are urging their readers to call their GOP senators and tell them to "kill the bill", not amend it. Righty bloggers are convinced that the bill will fail to achieve its goal of stimulating the economy, and they believe that GOPers have no reason to "protect [Dems] from the wrath of the voters" by helping them pass it.

Liberal bloggers, meanwhile, are nervous about reports that a group of centrist Senators led by Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME) has been trying to slash $100B worth of programs from the stimulus bill. While lefty bloggers concede that "avoiding a filibuster is necessary," they believe that stripping the bill of things like state money for education will weaken its stimulative effect. Steve Benen complains that "the Nelson/Collins group isn't just holding the president hostage, it's holding the economy hostage."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

STIMULUS: Kill The Bill!

Conservative bloggers continue to urge GOP senators to "kill the bill," not amend it:

  • Michelle Malkin: "Call the GOP wobblers. Tell 'em to slam the brakes. Kill the bill. Stab it. Stick a fork in it. Then start from scratch."
  • RedState's Erick Erickson: "Call your Senator again today at 202-224-3121. Tell him not to vote for the stimulus plan. If your Senator is a Republican -- even if in name only -- remind him that when this passes, the GOP will not get credit anyway. And when it passes, it will hurt more than help. Your Senator shouldn't want to be connected with it. The Democrats don't need any help to own this thing. Let's not given them any."
  • Power Line's John Hinderaker: "The biggest danger at this point is that moderate Republicans will collaborate with the Democrats in making immaterial changes in the bill that will give Obama and the Democrats a veneer of 'bipartisanship' and thereby protect them from the wrath of the voters. [...T]he Democrats' terrible bill must be defeated. Republicans should hold firm and not settle for the stripping out of a few of the bill's most egregious pork projects. If they do, it is quite possible that the bill may not pass. If it does, the Democrats will have to take responsibility for the consequences. Senate Republicans should not take them off the hook."

On the other hand, The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan thinks GOPers should be "a little more gracious": "The GOP has every right to resist; but they should surely understand that they lost the last election; that they have no credibility on fiscal discipline; and that, when push comes to shove, it may be the responsible thing in a crisis like this to be a little more gracious in setting aside hardball partisanship."

STIMULUS II: Please Save Us From The "Centrists"

Liberal bloggers were upset to learn that a group of centrist Senators led by Sen. Nelson and Sen. Collins was trying to slash $100B worth of programs from the stimulus package (including state money for education):

  • TAPPED's Tim Fernholz: "While avoiding a filibuster is necessary -- and it remains unclear if [Senate Maj. Leader Harry] Reid has the votes without these cuts -- I'm not sure that this is the right the way to do it; the bill may be passable without subtracting things like $24.8 billion in state stabilization money for education. State aid is absolutely critical to the overarching purpose of this bill -- stimulating the economy -- because it will prevent state governments, which cannot deficit spend, from cutting services and jobs. There are some spending initiatives that represent good public policy goals, like cyber security research, that could be cut from the bill in order to gain votes without compromising its purpose. It's not clear to me whether the Collins-Nelson crew is making these distinctions or just looking for programs that lack a strong constituency."
  • The Washington Monthly's Benen: "The Nelson/Collins group, to make the package 'palatable,' isn't eyeing the tax breaks that aren't stimulative, they're eyeing about $100 billion in spending that is stimulative. In other words, to get this thing passed, there will be less funding for cash-strapped states, schools, and energy, which needs to go to make room for tax cuts that no one seriously believes will spur growth. [...] The Nelson/Collins group isn't just holding the president hostage, it's holding the economy hostage."
  • Open Left's Paul Rosenberg: "It's ironic that the self-described 'fiscally responsible' centrist 'grownups' would be the authors of such an incredibly ill-informed, destructive attack on state governments and schoolchildren. But, then, that's what bipartisans do: support [George W.] Bush's war, give massive bailouts to Wall Street, ignore global warming and take money away from schools. [...] Collins-Nelson's cuts severely damage the effort to create an effective stimulus..."
  • Atrios: "'The Centrists.' They're gonna help to destroy the country, but at least they're very serious and hate hippies."

Daily Kos' Meteor Blades: "[M]uch of money already extracted and proposed for elimination will have a disproportionate impact on women and children. [...] The Jobs Bill arrived on Capitol Hill last month in a pre-compromised state that set many progressives' teeth on edge from the get-go. How much worse will it have to be made before it can get the 60 votes needed to send it to a House-Senate Conference Committee where it can be mucked up some more?"

STIMULUS III: You Can't Negotiate With People Like This

Liberal bloggers are pointing to the fact that 36 out of the 41 GOP senators voted for DeMint's amendment (which would have replaced all of the gov't spending with tax cuts) as evidence that GOPers cannot be negotiated with:

  • TPM's Elana Schor: "To emphasize the point, that means all but four GOPers were perfectly happy with scrapping the core assumption of the president's plan."
  • TPM's Josh Marshall: "There were 36 out of 41 Republican senators who voted to scrap all spending in the Stimulus Bill. All of it. This approaches flat earth territory in terms of where the economy is right now and what conventional macroeconomics suggests about how to combat the problem."
  • AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "[T]he GOP Senators showed their true intentions on Wednesday night when 36 of them voted to remove ALL spending from the stimulus. No stimulus spending when the economy is collapsing. That's the real GOP plan. And, yet, Obama is supposed to deal with those clowns in good faith? Just not possible. If any media types were actually paying attention, the DeMint vote would tell them all they need to know about the Republicans interest in saving our economy."
  • Benen: "Frankly, if 90% of Senate Republicans want to be the 'Neanderthal Party,' they're entitled. [...] If today's GOP sincerely believes, reality notwithstanding, that it's better to cut taxes yet again than inject capital into the economy, then yesterday's vote was wholly consistent with the party's policy vision. The next question, though, is why anyone would bother negotiating with 36 senators who believe up is down and black is white."
  • Obsidian Wings' publius: "You might think the DeMint bill is a parody at first -- the proposal of someone consciously trying to get chased out of office (think The Producers applied to politics). Indeed, in a more rational world, the DeMint proposal would be the story of the day -- and an object of national ridicule. [...T]he reality is that virtually the entire Republican Party is on record voting solely for massive tax cuts for the wealthy in the face of the worst economic crisis in our lifetime."
  • Balloon Juice's John Cole: "Tax cuts are, to Republicans, secular creationism. [...They are] crazy people."
  • dday: "These people are nuts."

OBAMA: Getting His Mojo Back

Liberal bloggers are praising Obama for giving a "pointedly partisan speech" to House Dems in which he criticized GOP opponents of his stimulus bill:

  • Marshall: "President Obama gave a great speech defending the Stimulus Bill today at the House Dems retreat. Exactly the case he needs to be making on TV and in some events around the country."
  • digby: "Good on him. [...] Hopefully, he will never, ever take fatous Republican assurances of support at face value again."
  • Open Left's David Sirota: "[Obama]'s on his game -- and he's finally thrown the Church of Broderism overboard. It's pretty badass."
  • MyDD's Charles Lemos: "[Obama's] brilliance tonight was his embrace of the partisan. He attacked the Republicans for the 'gift' of the ten trillion dollar debt that doubled on their watch. And he warned of the same old 'false theories of the past.' [...] Frankly, this was the speech that we have been awaiting with growing anxiety. Tonight he delivered a slam dunk."
  • publius: "Obama is starting to get his second wind -- for the first time, he's making aggressive and even openly partisan attacks against the stimulus opponents. To which I say -- it's about time. The Obama team has a tendency to be a few days late on tactics, but they're pretty good when they finally get the ball rolling."

OBAMA II: What Happened To Bipartisanship?

Unsurprisingly, conservative bloggers are criticizing Obama's speech to House Dems:

  • NRO's Byron York: "Do you believe Barack Obama is open to a bipartisan approach on the stimulus bill? Then you should take a look at the president's speech last night to the House Democratic Issues Caucus in Williamsburg."
  • NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "I realize Obama was speaking to Democrats, but that really sounded like an angry Democratic convention speech. It's not Obama at his most attractive. And it certainly doesn't sound like 'change.' It actually sounds a bit like MSNBC."
  • AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "You know President Obama is getting frustrated when he's forced to fall back on tired old campaign lines to try and rally support for the stimulus package (yes, even 'Fired up? Ready to go' made a comeback). [...I]n other words, Obama welcomes a bipartisan debate, but only if Republicans reject their own policies in favor of his spending priorities, only if that debate doesn't delay passage of the bill that he wants, and as long as cable news shows don't scrutinize what is actually in the legislation he's proposing."

The Heritage Foundation's Conn Carroll criticizes Obama's advocacy of federal spending: "[I]n 2000 the federal government spent just $1.8 trillion. Now the CBO estimates that the feds will spend almost double that, $3.5 trillion, in 2009 (and that does not include Obama's Trillion Dollar Debt Plan). Combining the increased $400 billion in revenue with with the $1.7 trillion increase in spending, we see that the mountains of debt Obama is whining about inheriting all came from massive increases in federal spending. It was borrowing and spending that got us into this mess. Obama's Trillion Dollar Debt Plan is not a 'change' from Bush, it is Bushonomics on steroids. [...] Last night Obama told Democrats, 'If you're headed for a cliff, you have to change direction.' That's a decent analogy, but the problem is his Trillion Dollar Debt Plan is not a change in direction. It is a foot on the accelerator. Instead, the Senators voting today should take another saying to heart: 'When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.'"

SOLIS: It Never Ends

Liberal bloggers are upset that the Senate delayed a confirmation hearing for Rep. Solis after it was reported that Solis's husband had failed to pay $6,400 in business taxes:

  • Benen: "If Hilda Solis' husband had been nominated for the cabinet, this delay might make sense. But as it stands, this is completely unjustified."
  • Brian Beutler: "I didn't realize her husband was going to be labor secretary. And what of the wives of...well, any cabinet member? Solis got the nod on December 18th. So it's been, what, seven weeks? Elaine Chao got confirmed in about two. But, of course, her husband is [Senate Min. Leader] Mitch McConnell, and he surely has no skeletons in his closet."

Conservative bloggers, on the other hand, are making hay of Solis's husband's tax issues:

  • Malkin: "This administration has no shame. No shame at all."
  • Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "How embarrassing has Obama become? [...] Have we had a more incompetent vetting process in the White House over such a short period of time? When we criticized Barack Obama's lack of executive experience, even we didn't think it was going to be this bad."
  • Erickson: "Obama likes tax cheats like Bill Clinton likes Big Macs and loose women. [...] What is it with these people? Are there any Democrats who pay taxes? Bueller? Bueller?"
  • NRO's Peter Kirsanow: "[This] confirms that there's an inexplicable, widespread problem in the Obama vetting process (as if [Timothy] Geithner, [Tom] Daschle, [Bill] Richardson, [Nancy] Killefer, et al hadn't already demonstrated that)."
  • Reynolds: "Two thoughts: (1) Don't any of these people pay their taxes? And (2) Is this, like, some kind of karmic payback for all the Joe-the-plumber tax business?"
  • AmSpec Blog's Doug Bandow: "Democrats get to raise taxes. Republicans get to pay them. That seens like a fair apportionment of responsibilities!"

SOLIS II: A Labor Secretary Who Supports Labor?

Liberal bloggers believe that Senate GOPers are trying to hold up Holis's nomination because of her support of organized labor:

  • MyDD's Todd Beeton: "The fact is that Republicans are intent on blocking Solis because of her support and advocacy for The Employee Free Choice Act."
  • Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "I see that Senate Republicans are continuing to throw up roadblocks in front of Hilda Solis, Obama's nominee for Labor Secretary. This is pretty odd. I mean, what's their beef? That she's pro-labor and pro-EFCA? That can hardly be a surprise, since Obama himself is pro-labor and pro-EFCA. [...] I guess it's yet another indication that of all the things that drive Republicans crackers, labor tops the list. Even more than taxes, they just go completely nuts when they're faced with the prospect of unions gaining a bit of power. The result is a temper tantrum over Solis even though they know perfectly well they can't stop her nomination."
  • Daily Kos' Trapper John: "Solis's opponents are arguing that the US Secretary of Labor should recuse herself from advocating for passage of the most important labor law reform measure facing the United States. Needless to say this is completely insane -- it's akin to saying that the HHS Secretary shouldn't be involved in the health care debate, or that the Defense Secretary shouldn't talk about Iraq. But it's indicative of just how completely scared the Republican Party and its corporate masters are about the workplace democracy promised by the Employee Free Choice Act. No cabinet appointee other than Solis has been subject to such an assault, and it's because Solis is guilty of the GOP's unforgivable sin -- supporting the right of working people to join together and fight for their share of this country's wealth."
  • Sudbay: "Apparently, Republican Senators want to establish a new standard for the Secretary of Labor: Stay out of pro-worker legislation. Wonkette captures the situation perfectly in the post titled, 'Labor Nomination Held Up Due To Nominee's Support Of Labor.'"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Majority Party With A Minority Mindset

Conservative blogger Jeff Emanuel makes a variation of an argument that many liberal bloggers have been making:

"With over 250 votes in the House (nearly 60% of the total), Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi is demanding Republican support for legislation she, had she the slightest bit of competence and political acumen, could ram through without broaching the least bit of dissent (witness the pork barrel bill's passage despite 11 Democrats and 100% of Republicans opposing it). With nearly 60 D/I votes in the Senate, a handful of liberal Republicans just itching to work with him, and the GOP's strength being taken down yet another notch with the departure of Judd Gregg to fill a ceremonial role at best in President Obama's cabinet, Harry Reid could push through anything he wanted with little time spared for needless debate or discussion. With the power of the bully pulpit and both houses of Congress on his side of the partisan divide, President Obama could push nearly anything he wanted through the legislature, demanding votes first and questions/discussion/reading later.

Unfortunately for Democrats, none of the Big Three, nor apparently anybody else in the party or caucus, actually wants to act like they won the 2008 election. Rather than taking advantage of the sole proprietorship Washington has become and using those near-supermajorities, combined with the message-amplifying power of a sympathetic media, to impose agenda item after agenda item on America, Obama, Reid, Pelosi, et al are still trying to push off responsibility for governing -- for bill passage and failure, for the economy, for international crises, etc. -- on everybody else, including the near-powerless and effectively silenced minority. The American electorate provided the Democratic party with a two-year window -- 2009-10 -- to make all of its campaign rhetoric into reality, with no opposition and the sheer numbers to do whatever it wants. Unfortunately, the Democrats in the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives simply don't know what to do with this sudden power, nor with the responsibility that comes along with it."

LEST WE FORGET: Ken Whisenhunt: 'A Lot Of People Said We Couldn't Come In Here And Win, And They Were Correct'

From The Onion:

"TAMPA BAY, FL -- After losing 27-23 to the Steelers in a hard-fought Super Bowl, Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt boldly addressed the Cardinals' detractors, lauding them for a correct prediction of a Steeler win. 'They said our defense couldn't come through in a big spot, that we were too inexperienced, that [running back] Edge [Edgerrin James] was finished: right, right, and right. I only wish I had listened to them and not gotten my hopes up so high,' said Whisenhunt, expressing satisfaction in proving doubters 'right, but barely.' 'We heard all week about how there was no way we'd come out of there with a win, and then that's the way it happened. Bottom line, they were right and I was wrong.' Whisenhunt then addressed those die-hard Cardinal fans who believed in the team all along, calling them 'delusional' and 'misguided.'"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at February 6, 2009 01:02 PM



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