In an extraordinary Saturday session, the obstructionist Congressional GOP is trying to force the Democrats to strip even more money from the stimulus bill. The same people who slammed through the PATRIOT Act because it was "an emergency" even though no one had read the damn thing are now saying they won't vote for the stim bill because it hasn't been "properly reviewed".
President Barack Obama on Saturday championed his economic stimulus plan as "absolutely necessary" — if imperfect — while Senate Republicans dug in against an $827 billion measure they said hadn't even been written, let alone properly reviewed or sufficiently revised.
"Sufficiently revised" of course means too much money creating jobs and not enough tax cuts.
And this was after all the compromising BD Ben Nelson & Friends did this week, eliminating $108 Bil worth of worthless spending like this:
[L]awmakers and interest groups sorted out the impact of changes agreed on Friday by GOP moderates and the White House. The compromise purged Obama's plan of $108 billion in spending, some of which was likely to help the economy, yet it retained items that probably won't help the economy much at all.
Among the most controversial cuts was the elimination of $40 billion in aid to states, money that economists say is a relatively efficient way to pump up the economy by preventing layoffs, cuts in services or tax increases.
Negotiators left in the package $70 billion to address the alternative minimum tax to make sure families wouldn't be socked with unexpected tax increases averaging $2,300 or so. The problem was going to be fixed later in the year anyway, and congressional economists say fixing the AMT problem helps the economy by surprising little.
While publicly supportive of the bill, White House officials and top Democrats are disappointed that so much money was cut, including almost $20 billion for construction and repair of schools and university facilities. Those funds would have supported many construction jobs.
(emphasis added)
Disappointed, huh? Well, what'd they expect the GOP to do? Applaud their fiscal responsibility and daring? New black RNC Chair Michael Steele swam in the swamp one would expect a Pub to swim in.
"Democrats have controlled both branches of government for less than a month. And you have to wonder if all that power has gone to their heads," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in the GOP's weekly address. "For the last two weeks, they've been trying to force a massive spending bill through Congress under the guise of economic relief."
Once again it's important to emphasize that nobody outside the Beltway is listening to Michael Steele or the GOP, yet the reason for the compromises that will all but kill the bill is claimed by unnamed Obama aides to be some mythical "public rebuke".
Obama aides worked to promote a slightly scaled-down version of the president's plan to energize a struggling economy and put people back to work. White House aides were not satisfied with the tenuous Senate-brokered compromise, but they tried to make sure that the administration's first legislative priority didn't collapse in public rebuke.
What "public rebuke" are they expecting? If it didn't get passed? BS. Then you hit the Pubs for being the obstructionist assholes they are. If it was too expensive? NOBODY CARES. We're dying out here. Spend whatever it takes. The Pubs aren't fooling anybody any more with their t & s shit except the rich and the stoopid. You don't need to take anything they say seriously. They're all INSANE.
But Obama is, g-b 'im, finally pushing back.
Obama made an aggressive push for House and Senate lawmakers to work quickly to resolve their differences. The White House plans a major public relations blitz: A prime-time news conference Monday, several trips outside Washington next week and an address to a joint session of Congress later this month.
He had hoped to sign economic legislation on his first day in office, but instead he has spent his first three weeks in office wrangling with a reluctant Congress, including fellow Democrats.
(emphasis added)
So much for the honeymoon. Kind of a short one this time, what with members of his own party stabbing him in the back.
It may be too little too late, or it may not. Certainly the corporate media won't be friendly and they'll have to give every truth he mouths a "balancing" lie from the lying GOP, but that's to be expected. At least he isn't going to pull a Clinton and try to smile his way through it.
Still feeling that post-partisan love, Barry? Remember what you're fighting for, kid: (the Green Line is the present recession)
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