Posted on 01/28/2009 5:05:03 PM PST by Michael Eden
In public - and eagerly devoured by an Obama-worshiping press - Barack Obama and his team of advisers have framed the process of crafting a stimulus package as one that will be inclusive and bipartisan in nature.
But in private - and now happily increasingly in public as well - Democrats are telling Republicans where they can stick their objections to Democrats acting like money grows on trees and that the government can dig the economy out of a hole by digging deeper and faster.
Obama had the pretension of talking about his plan passing with 80 votes in the Senate. How about 178 forks in your eye instead? Obama talked about going through the budget "line by line" to cut out waste, but can't even do that with his own spending initiative.
The Republicans may actually grow a spine as Democrats shut them out of a room so they can craft a bill featuring little actual stimulus but massive spending to fund projects that Democrats have always wanted.
"There was no Republican input at all involved in what House Democrats outlined today," Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a news conference at the Capitol. "I just took a moment to look over the draft from Chairman [David] Obey and the draft or outline from Chairman [Charlie] Rangel. Oh, my God.Boehner also said:"I just can't tell you how shocked I am at what we're seeing. You know, it's clear that they're moving on this path along the flawed notion that we can borrow and spend our way back to prosperity."
“We expressed our concerns about some of the spending that’s being proposed in the House bill,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said after meeting with Obama.And would that the hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives was the only issue. This spending bill (i.e. NOT a "stimulus" package) features $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts so they can finance more insults to Jesus displayed in jars of urine. It features $400 million to throw away on "climate change" research. But the "mother of all pork" is the $4.19 BILLION that will go to Obama front group ACORN. This package is more about instilling old socialist-welfare packages than it is about stimulating the economy.“How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives?” Boehner asked. “How does that stimulate the economy?”
"Stimulus"? The Congressional Budget Office has said that at least 25% of the Obama bailout would not even be spent before 2011. GOP Whip Eric Cantor has compiled a sizable list of media sources reporting just that fact. That won't help our economy when we need it - which is RIGHT NOW. And only about 12% of the spending can even be construed as "stimulus." The Wall Street Journal rightly states that the massive socialist pork package has nothing to do with the economy.
Nancy Pelosi expressed the bi-partisan spirit of Democrats:
"Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters yesterday, saying Republicans were not being realistic in their expectations.Meanwhile, Pelosi all but predicts that the $825 billion figure is going to continue to balloon higher:
Pelosi suggested that the package, currently at $825 billion, could become even larger.Barack Obama put his feelings about bi-partisanship this way:“It has grown,” Pelosi said, “and we’re still in the process.”
"I won," Obama noted matter-of-factly, according to sources familiar with the conversation.Obama met with Republicans to tell them all how wonderful he was, assuring them how open he was to bipartisan compromise. Nice gesture undermined by its sheer showy meaninglessness. Obama talked about compromise, but the bill stayed the same hard-core partisan waste of money.
To those of you who believe that Obama was the king of the fairies, and that happiness and fluttering butterflies would follow him wherever he went, he is already presiding over the same-old, same-old:
The GOP's shrunken numbers, particularly in the Senate, will make it difficult for Republicans to stop the stimulus bill, but the growing GOP doubts mean that Obama's first major initiative could be passed on a largely party-line vote -- little different from the past 16 years of partisan sniping in the Clinton and Bush eras.To their credit, not a single Republican supported the Obama bailout and social spending package. All 178 Republicans in the House of Representatives turned it down. But Nancy has her vote. American wanted Demcorats to run the country, and how they get to see what that will mean for them. As of right now (there's time for it to mushroom even more yet), it means an additional $350 billion in interest payments over the next ten years. CNN reports that the plan with interest will be $1.2 trillion.
Why does Barack Obama want "bipartisan support"? If this massive spending program would really "stimulate" an economic turnaround, why would he even want Republicans horning in on his credit? Why not pass it, and crush the Republicans for good for failing to support this wonderful legislation? Because he wants cover, that's why. When this mother of all pork fiascos fails, he doesn't want Democrats absorbing all the blame for it.
Personally, I feel this way: let the Democrats ram it through on a highly partisan and ideologically-driven vote. Let them pile it as high as they can with all the lavish pork their greedy little brains can imagine. Let them imperiously shove all kinds of liberal socialist spending onto the country. And let Republicans stand against it, vote against it, predict it will fail horribly, and then hang it around Democrats' necks like a giant, dead, rotting albatross in the coming months and years ahead.
Democrats don't need Republicans to transform our market based economy into a socialist government-run economy. Fine. Just as long as they don't have the naked chutzpah to even ask for it, much less expect it.
Don't ask us for a kiss while you're trying to rape us, Democrats. Expect to get your eyes gouged out, your nose broken, and as much other damage as we can possibly do to you.
I hope you’re wrong about three of those names.
McCain has SAID he’d vote against it. And I hope if nothing else the man has the intelligence to look at what the House Republicans did and votes accordingly.
There are quite a lot of people who think if McCain had voted against the first socialist bailout and given the opposition a voice, he would be President today.
It would have been a much closer election, for sure.
Cripeys, her district is right next to mine on Florida's Nature Coast.
I don't understand it, she had announced her fervent opposition to this bill and her position is even on her congressional web site.
Wonder what happened? Anyone know in the Brooksville, Dade City areas?
Leni
“Republicans should keep reminding everyone that Democrats are in complete control. “
That’s right. Let the Dems get the “credit” for this so-called “stimulus.”
RATS are riding high and they’re due for a big drop.
More then enough voters thought the Repubs were in power since 06,
and voted more rats in, in 08. Damn I wish voters weren't so damn ignorant.
Seriously, today's homeschool discussion was on the book "Brave New World" and my 17 yr old and I were comparing the book to Obama's policies and the "stimulus bill". Very interesting...population control, letting the government raise our children, etc.
If any of you haven't pulled out these books in a few years, I suggest re-reading them as an adult. They take on a whole new meaning in these Obama times.
My suggested reading list...
Brave New World
Farenheit 451
Animal Farm
1984
I can almost guarantee you will see these books and our government in a whole new light! I enjoyed them more as an adult!
“Damn I wish voters weren’t so damn ignorant.”
Each of us needs to write letters to editors to our home town newspapers. Many voters don’t use the internet, or listen to talk radio, but they DO read those letters to the editor.
In fact, my elderly aunt is one of them, and compliments me after reading one of my editor’s letters.
Didnt McCain state just a couple of weeks ago that he should have voted against the TARP? Well - this is much worse so lets just hope his standards remain on an even keel.
I voted for GWB twice and against BHO. GWB had 8 years and BHO has been in office a little over a week. The mess we are took years to develop and 8 of those years were under a Republican administration that called itself conservative while spending like there was no tomorrow. Whatever we want to believe about what will happen under BHO with a large Democrat majority, we were deep in disaster on inauguration day. As Truman said, “The buck stops here.” This crisis began on GWB’s watch I for one hold him largely responsible. Had he shown some spine the last two years and used his veto pen and the bully pulpit I would believe differently. Unfortunately, he showed no ability to fight after the Republicans lost the majority in Congress. You score no points if you don’t even try
I totally agree with your first paragraph, but do have to take some issues with the 2nd (above).
A couple of things:
The Community Reinvestment Act was used by Democrats in a race-baiting manner. An article in Wikipedia will help to show what its proponents claimed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act
Essentially, to oppose the CRA was to oppose black people. it was virtually impossible for Republicans to really get against it given the black support. No matter how bad it was.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the real source of the problems. It wasn’t “failure to regulate,” because Fannie and Freddie were ALREADY under Congressional control. But it had come to be run and staffed almost entirely by Democrats. Franklin Raines, the “first black” chairman, was kept by Bush (what would the media say if Bush canned the “first black chairman?” The problem with Democrat-brainchild Fannie and Freddie was that the profits were always private and the losses were always public. It was Fannie and Freddie that “guaranteed” the subprime mortgages that resulted in so many major financial institutions buying the bundled packages. Everyone thought these investments were safe because Fannie and Freddie had “guaranteed” them. And then the world blew up.
Bush TRIED to regulate Fannie and Freddie. Twice. And both times was stopped due to COMPLETE DEMOCRAT OPPOSITION.
Barney Frank: ”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/24/whitewashing-fannie-freddie/
Finally, Democrats - who were in complete control of Congress (and held complete regulatory authority over Fannie and Freddie) - were still saying everything was fine at Fannie and Freddie even just before it imploded. Here’s Barney Frank - who chaired the committee overseeing Fannie and Freddie - a couple of months before the bottom fell out.
I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432173,00.html
Sorry, but the only thing you can blame Republicans for was for not realizing that Democrats were vile cockroaches who were intent upon destroying the economy. And you can blame them for not going to total war to oppose Democratic agendas - where they would have been called racist and everything else - in the face of an issue that no one understood and the media would have spun.
Shutting the Republicans out of the Stimulus package makes sense. The Democratic parts of this country probably need a handout way more than Republican districts.
I hope you also introduce your child to Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” He has an incredibly insightful take on the contrast between the future as predicted in 1984 and in Brave New World.
It helps explain why the media - and particularly television - are so warped.
Re: Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death.”
Haven’t read it, sounds like a good read! Next on my list right after I finish “Do the Right Thing” by Mike Huckabee.
Would had been nice if the “Elephants” had some backbone BEFORE the election (say, 2005 to 2008).
A tax revolt is the first step in the answer to this question.
What Postman does is demonstrates how the nature of the media (i.e. the ‘technology’) influences not only the message but even the content and the material that is covered.
For instance, smoke signals convey very little information. They aren’t much of a medium for discussion of philosophy. The form excludes the content. But, says Postman, neither is television a good medium for philosophical discussion: people want to see colors; they want to see attractive people, etc. It turns out IT’S form excludes content, too. Postman argues that television has dramatically dumbed down communication compared to the printed word. Literate generations enjoyed lengthy debate; today’s age is quickly bored with it.
He shows how communication in imagery is dramatically different from communication in writing. And points out that the more “serious” television tries to be, the worse and more dangerous it becomes.
He also argues that - beginning with the advent of the telegraph - “news” has been totally changed. We are now exposed to events that people in the past would have neither known about or cared about.
You combine the distortions due to the above with naked bias, and you get something genuinely dangerous to civilization.
If every Republican in the Senate voted against this pork then Obama won’t get his 60.
The thing I most fear is that the Republicans will make a brief show of force, and then cave in to media pressure to get the best “deal” they can get - which will of course be awful.
They need to be united against Obama, and against Democrat socialist pork. They need to argue against it, campaign against it, predict it will fail, and then take advantage of the moment that it DOES fail.
It's a must read these days.
L
At least until the billions for ACORN are removed from the Obammy plan, the Senate pubbies had better filibuster this suicidal bill. Would someone please reach over and slap Mitch McConnell and tell him that republicans don’t like socialism and get really pissed when republican Senators vote for Marxist legislation?
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