After posting the previous screed, President Obama got in front of the microphones and said what many have been saying since he was sworn in just 17 days ago: the American public rejected the Republicans philosophy of tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts.
But, on Friday Morning, Contessa Brewer was on MSNBC regurgitating the Republican talking points, word for fucking word, complaining about all the “pork barrel spending.” This is funny, she and her confederates in the news business don’t even bother to use different language, disguise the fact that they aren’t really doing any research on the topic — doing their jobs — just listening to partisan Republicans and repeating what they say, as if it were true.
What is it in the stimulus plan they think is “pork barrel” spending? Millions for education for one thing. Increasing the money for education is “pork.” Extended unemployment benefits have been labeled “pork,” even as we find that 600,000 Americans lost their jobs in the month of January 2009. The reasoning, according to the Republicans, for labeling it pork, is that the extended benefits will discourage people from looking for work — despite the fact that more and more people are losing jobs and the job pool is shrinking.
The bill has been characterized by the right, and echoed by the news media, as all the pet bills the “far left” of the Democratic Party has always wanted to implement but were too afraid to in the past. And, they have accused President Obama and the Democrats of resorting to fear tactics to push their agenda.
The irony of course is that Republicans, along with the Democrats, were saying just a month ago the country was in dire circumstances and the government had to inject a stimulus plan soon, the clock is ticking. Now that they have the attention of the news media, their tune has changed; we are “rushing” into a problem that isn’t all that severe, despite the fact that 3.6 million Americans have lost their jobs in the past 13 months.
The posturing is ridiculous. In the Senate, you had one senator (John Thune I believe) with these stupid visual aids, was explaining his opposition to the stimulus plan: if you stacked the trillion dollars in c-notes, the stack would reach over 600 miles into space, or it could circle the globe 10 times! That’s your opposition to the stimulus plan? Are you kidding?
And then there was the Obstructionist-in-Chief, John McCain, shouting into the empty Senate chamber, “You can call this an agreement, but you can’t call it a bi-partisan agreement!”
His stimulus plan, rejected along party lines, is, and I kid you not, more tax cuts for the rich and increased spending on military needs. Makes you want to ask the Arizona senator, “Do you think there is any problem in the universe that can’t be fixed by tax cuts?
Economists have said his plan, the Republican plan, is just a continuation of the Bush economic plan, if one can call it that.
Five months ago, China, instead of giving money to the banks, as our government did, pumped over $500,000.00 into their system to rebuild their infrastructure, including schools. They’re putting their citizens to work for the common good. What are we doing? As of today, nothing.
Republicans think building new schools, fixing the existing schools, hiring new teachers and support personnel and increasing the pay of the teachers and school officials so they stay on the job — is all pork barrel spending. Pumping money into education is port barrel spending.
As a nation we have one of the worst rankings in the Western group of democratic nations, and spending money to improve, at the very least the infrastructure of the schools, is pork barrel?
Never mind the number of people who will be employed as teachers, the number of construction workers who will be employed to build new schools and fix the current buildings, putting these people to work is pork barrel spending.
All the Republicans want to do is posture in front of the American people and they are getting results. As of today, they are looking to cut $88 billion from the plan, including funding for NASA (cut science) public transit (can’t be encouraging people to leave their personal vehicles at home) the U.S. Coast Guard (let’s not pour too much into Homeland security) and prisons.
The do want more spending on defense and transportation-related projects; i.e., fix and build the roads, encouraging people to continue using their own vehicles and burning fossil fuel.
Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma decided to make it personal by calling the stimulus plan the “Obama Generational Theft Act of 2009.” He actually gave an impassioned speech about “core conservative values” and the crime of spending money that doesn’t exist! He’s so dreamy when he gets that way.
So, that must have been his lament every time the Bush administration came to Congress asking for money that didn’t exist to pay for a war of convenience, a war that continues nearly six years after the man who started it declared “Mission Accomplished” on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln while it was just 30 miles off the San Diego Coast, sent to sea that day just to accommodate the president’s photo op.
Nope, those of us who opposed Bush’s war in Iraq and opposed the unfettered funding of Bush’s war were (are) unpatriotic, traitors even.
Coburn, and other Senate Republicans like Chuck Grassley, David Vitter, Saxby Chambliss and that odorous man from Tennessee, the former Majority Leader Bill Frist and many more that could be named, had no problem spending money (that didn’t exist) that went to just one branch of government, funding a very small number of contractors — even sending money to Iraq after they were told and it was proven billions were being “lost” to corruption and corporate waste. The scope of their hypocrisy is diminished only by the slowly blinding mask of time.
The Republicans have been successful. They have put doubt into the minds of the American people who, two weeks ago, were overwhelmingly behind the president and the stimulus plan. Now, slightly more than half of all Americans support the president’s plan.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should follow through on his threat to call the bill to a closure vote, in other words, end the debate and amending of the bill and put it to a vote. See if the Republicans want to try and block it with a filibuster.
Thursday Night President Obama took it to a new level, when he criticized Republicans for calling it a “spending bill.” He said, “So then you get the argument, ‘well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill.’ What do you think a stimulus is? That’s the whole point!”
Thanks for stepping up to the plate Mr. President. Now let’s see if the Republicans have what it takes to be true obstructionists.
TheForkesReport