The Problem. I don’t need to tell you what the problem is. I know that you’ve seen it or read about it. Pompous Republican legislators opining drearily about how to undo what they did to us over the past eight years. They offer ideologically-based assertions about the so-called problems with the Obama recovery plan, lots of misinformation and few real facts. Hard to believe, but they also persist in calling for just the types of tax cuts that are sure to guarantee that there is either no recovery or a much weaker recovery.
According to figures cited by Chuck Loveless, AFSCME Political Director, in a blogger’s conference call today, all of the “wasteful” programs Republicans gas about come to only about one seven hundredth of 1% of the entire spending package. Alternatively, Josh Marshall of TPM counted 5.01 Billion in spending — out of $819 Billion — that forms the basis for the right-wing attack.
To wax biblical: “how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?” I’d say that many of the Republican claims about wastefulness have to be the result of the log in the collective Republican eye. Either that or they just want to mislead the gullible. So what if 600 million is spent to replace federal vehicles with hybrids? The result is automotive industry jobs as far as I can figure. Same for 125 million for Washington D.C. sewers — how doesn’t that kind of infrastructure project make jobs?
Worst of all, we are bleeding jobs while Republicans in congress tie up a good job creation package qibbling about peripheral details. Without the stimulus plan, it is almost a sure thing that the unemployment rate will top 11% by 2010. Economists agree that the stimulus plan as it is now configured will create millions of jobs, jobs that are desperately needed. Given what is happening right now, how can these fools play their obstructionist games?
Why do Republicans Want the Recovery Plan to Fail? AFSCME’s Loveless and Brad Woodhouse, President of Americans United for Change, offered a quick and concise answer to that question during the conference call: If the Obama Recovery Plan can be defeated or watered down so that it is ineffective, then the entire Obama agenda, healthcare, climate change initiatives, the whole ball of wax, will also fail.
Republicans may have lost the election in November, but they have not given up the war. They may not take direction from Rush Limbaugh, who is unequivocal that he wants Obama to fail, but there can be no doubt that the “America First” bunch are really “party first.”
What Can be Done to Stop The Blow-Hards? Clark had it right in his earlier post. Loveless and Woodhouse, though, suggest some further actions. They note several crucial senators who might be susceptible to pressure. They suggest that, if you are so inclined, you contact these folks toll-free via this webpage. Of course, our own Kit Bond is prominent on this list. If you are curious, check below the fold for the list of targeted senators, but be sure to contact both Bond and McCaskill (even though McCaskill is not on the list).
Senators who have been targeted by Afscme and Americans United for Change. You will notice that there are some Democrats on this list as well. Given the furror of calls that the right-wing talk hosts have stirred up in support of the obstructionists, these moderate souls may waver if progressives don’t step up and help them maintain a stiff spine.
Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)
Susan Collins (R-Maine)
Richard G. Lugar (R-Indiana)
Evan Bayh (D-Indiana)
Mel Martinez (R-Florida)
Christopher Bond (R-Missouri)
Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin)
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska)
Arlan Specter (R-Pennsylvania)
George Voinovich (R-Ohio)
Charles (Chuck) Grassley (R-Iowa)
In addition to phoning, you can contact Senators via email by going going to this site and selecting the relevant Webpages. Telephone numbers are also available from these Webpages, if you don’t wish to use the MakeAmericaHappen site noted aboe.
Where did all this money that you progressives want to spend on these big social programs come from? News flash: It came from Capitalism! You are not entitled to my money, and I am not entitled to anyone elses money. Answer this question honestly – why are countries like France, Venezuela and Russia struggling financially? Because the cost of oil – that is based on FREE markets is down now and they finance all of their social programs on selling oil on our free markets. So even these “progressive” countries depend on capitalism to survive. If you destroy capitalism, where are you going to get all of this money that you want to spend on programs that WILL NOT help this economy. Nobody spends their way out of financial problems and anyone who thinks that is an idiot! Let me apply that to my own life – lets say I have thousands of dollars in credit card debt, I can’t pay my bills, and I’m close to losing my house. Am I going to get out of my financial mess by spending more money and going deeper in debt? I believe the obvious answer is No! And the government is not going to get our economy out of this financial mess by spending even more money on social programs that will only empower and grow more government. Why don’t you just be honest with your readers and admit that your true motives are to take over this government so you can empower yourself? You don’t really care about those kid who don’t have health care, or the single mom struggling to pay her bills – all you want is the power so you can spend our money however you please. Let’s just see how long it takes for all of American’s money (made through capitalism) to be spent and for our country to go bankrupt. You progressives will have the proud honor of turning America from a First World country to a Third World country. Congratulations!!
this interview from by TPM’s David Kurtz with Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research addresses the needs for possibly even more funds:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wS9hyWkVNo&hl=en&fs=1%5D
Where did all this money that you progressives want to spend on these big social programs come from? News flash: It came from Capitalism!
No, it came from labor.
You are not entitled to my money, and I am not entitled to anyone elses money.
So I take it that you build and pave your own section of road? And if your house catches on fire, you won’t call the fire department, because that is government funded – (through taxes!) And if you are a victim of a crime, you don’t trouble the police with your personal difficulties, right? And you don’t purchase any consumer goods so there is no need for the CPSC or the USDA or the TSA or any of the regulatory agencies? And if you do buy something that turns out to harm you or kill one of your kids, well, it was gods will and you had no right to expect that baby crib to be safe anyway, did you? And you never get sick or take medicine that was researched, tested and approved as safe by an empowered FDA? No, from your screen name you probably just pray, so scratch that question.
Answer this question honestly – why are countries like France, Venezuela and Russia struggling financially? Because the cost of oil – that is based on FREE markets is down now and they finance all of their social programs on selling oil on our free markets.
Idiot. Oil is fiduciary. It goes onto the global market, and manipulation and speculation caused instability and wide swings in the price. Ever wonder why “Drill here, drill now!” seemed to disappear overnight? The idiots in the corporate media realized that most people who attended real schools that aren’t convened in the basement of the Pentacostal church knew this, and so rather than point out the obvious lunacy of the mantra, they just ignored it till it went away. The repubs knew it all along, they only kept it up while it got press.
So even these “progressive” countries depend on capitalism to survive.
No one asserted capitalism needs to go. But unbridled is just another extreme, and extremism in any form is dangerous.
If you destroy capitalism, where are you going to get all of this money that you want to spend on programs that WILL NOT help this economy.
Again, no one said anything about destroying capitalism except the right-wing loons on talk radio. As for the second half: Can you back up this assertion, cite your sources and show your work? I want to see evidence of conserving ones way out of a recession.
Nobody spends their way out of financial problems and anyone who thinks that is an idiot!
Get your ass to a library and look up the difference between micro and macro economics – and anyone who doesn’t understand the difference is an idiot!
Let me apply that to my own life – lets say I have thousands of dollars in credit card debt, I can’t pay my bills, and I’m close to losing my house. Am I going to get out of my financial mess by spending more money and going deeper in debt? I believe the obvious answer is No!
This is microeconomics.
And the government is not going to get our economy out of this financial mess by spending even more money on social programs that will only empower and grow more government.
Wrong. Infrastructure and government programs are the only things that will help. This is macroeconomics.
Why don’t you just be honest with your readers and admit that your true motives are to take over this government so you can empower yourself?
Why don’t you get help for your obvious Axis I paranoid schizophrenic disorder?
You don’t really care about those kid who don’t have health care, or the single mom struggling to pay her bills – all you want is the power so you can spend our money however you please.
She’s on to us! No, seriously, you moron – I didn’t spend all those years in public health doing ever more with less and less all through the Bush years to provide frontline health care to uninsured poor kids because I don’t care, and I resent the holy hell out of you making blanket assertions about me when you don’t know me, or anything about me, yet think you are qualified to cast aspersions because you know all about us. Dumbass.
Let’s just see how long it takes for all of American’s money (made through capitalism)
Let’s just see how long it takes for all of American’s money (made through labor) – fixed it for ya. I’ll send you my bill – my labor isn’t free, I have a capitalistic streak, too!
to be spent and for our country to go bankrupt.
Excuse me, but just where the hell do you get off ascribing motives to us or making claims that you know what other people think? I thought you religious wackos were anathema to the supernatural, etc?
You progressives will have the proud honor of turning America from a First World country to a Third World country. Congratulations!!
Even if that was our goal – which it is not – we would be thwarted by reality…That honor went to Dubya.
To Blue Girl…. what a well laid out and precise argument .. well done