Recovery Deal
According to the NYT (and the BBC who is reporting this now), the Dem leadership plus the so-called moderate group reached a deal on the recovery package. As of now, there aren’t many details and no clear info on when a vote will be taken. Senator Kennedy has returned to DC to vote on this, so I presume it will be very soon. EDIT: Suzanne over at Redwaterlily has more detail.
So while we wait for the vote, here’s the Daily Show on the shenanigans by Repubs in the Senate:
I think this will be a watered down bill. They made cuts of good, job-creating programs. I think that goes to show how little there actually was to cut in the bill.
I really think this is bill #1. Once Franken gets seated in the Senate there will be 59 Democrats (57, if you don’t count Lieberman or Nelson). I don’t know how Newman (NH) will vote, but if she’s a liberal Republican it may mean we only need 2 of the following: Nelson, Collins, Lieberman, Snow, Specter.
I thought BushCo had pretty much destroyed the Republican party but apparently they are not done committing political suicide.
UI is right… the New Deal wasn’t passed all in one bill either. I am concerned about any tax cuts that may be focused on the upper brackets or corporations; not much bang for the buck there. They will kill revenues and are hard to get rid of.
For the life of me I do not understand why Republicans went down this path. What on earth possessed them to put their stamp all over this bill?
And while most Americans don’t understand the details of the bill, they do know – given the endless Republican face-time on TV – that Republicans are changing the bill.
Why are they so eager to share ownership?
What on earth possessed them to put their stamp all over this bill?
For the spending cuts they insisted on, they are positioning themselves for 201o to run as deficit hawks against the big-spending Democrats.
For their insistence on tax cuts, they are still serving their wealthy and corporate masters (so much for “country first.”
They have clearly given up on their Reagan Democrat working-class base, who is signing up for unemployment and Medicaid benefits.
For the life of me I do not understand why Republicans went down this path.
They have a bunch of cheerleaders in the “liberal” media.
Sickening.
I pine for the days when the media tried to get actual facts right. Now they simply don’t give a shit.
Actually, the Republicans have a point about the spending cuts. I think the bill should have been split into two bills: “Recovery” and “Relief.” That would clarify the debate and eliminate the Republican carping about how this or that spending doesn’t create jobs.
I guess I’m thinking that if the bill fails to help the economy then the Republicans will be blamed as well.
DD was right in his post the other day. Republicans should have quietly opposed the bill.
Pandora the Repuks went after this Bill because they have learned that the Dem’s will cave which they did. Why Obama didn’t call on his troops for support is beyond reason. The Wing nuts opposition was 100 to one against liberal support calling Washington
Which is my point, TT. The Republicans have grabbed ownership of a bill they can’t stand. If it fails they have lost the right to say “I told you so.”
TT: you are absolutely correct. Where are the liberals, moderates and progressives? Why are the wingnuts so well organized that they can have their way….because we don’t do our job.
The democrats especially those considered moderate (wrong) they are right of center ~~~continue to screw up with their supply side economics which have failed so miserably. The democrats have no back bone (never have) to stand up and fight for what they know is the correct path. They had enough votes to keep those “tax cuts for the 2% of wealthiest out of the package”, but because they are so fearful “the shot glass they are using to bail out the Titanic” will fail…..they are willing to take the chance and make sure it does fail. Its all about their personal political lives and nothing to do with helping the american citizens screaming for real jobs and real help.
anon@7 has an interesting point. Rather than mount up on the usual failed policies (tax cuts!) using their usual tactic of just plain lying about what they are opposing (because they already know the media won’t check), I would have tried to carveout of this bill the longer-term investment portions of this package — the FutureGen the broadband buildouts and so on with an argument that this stuff won’t have much immediate stimulative impact so should really be considered in the regular legislative process as investment. That, really, would have been an argument worth having.
3 guesses as to why they didn’t do that.
Matt Yglesias sums up what the so-called “moderates” cuts of the bill amount to: But people shouldn’t be under any delusions as to what Nelson, Collins, and co. are doing—they’re slimming the bill down by going after weak claimants, not by slicing out the weakest claims.