It’s not that surprising that Republicans don’t like the stimulus package that David Obey wrote and filled with goodies for liberals. What’s less clear is why liberals seem to be attached to everything in Obey’s fantasy. Just because it is a good idea doesn’t mean it is the end of the world if it isn’t in the stimulus. The stimulus bill has a specific job and that job isn’t to fulfill every item on liberals’ wish list. I have no problem with the Senate stripping out money for Hollywood and I don’t really care about many of the particular items in the bill. Sometime soon, the bill will pass both houses of congress with substantial bipartisan support. And then we’ll all pray that it stops the downward spiral of the economy. Regardless, it’s the final product and final votes that matter. The rest of this is just bullshit post-game analysis being done in the second quarter.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Someone wrote a diary at DailyKos about the “left” being addicted to marginality. “Progressives” are also utterly adapted to being spun by the media and to having fits of utter despair and frenzy.
Oh my GOD! OBAMA has FAILED!! Chuck Todd says he’s lost the Senate!! The Washington Times says that it’s over!! Gasp GASP! We’ve been betrayed and defeated at the time time. We’re DOOMED
[if the above violates the copyright of any material at OpenLeft, it was purely accidental]
One thing that is obvious is that 20 years of pent-up energy is not mollified by any effort at compromise.
There is also a massive lack of realism. Obama has a very weak majority in the senate and a precedent of the last two Democratic Presidents being cut down by the Senate in the first year; the media is deeply committed to attacking Obama; the administration has not yet managed to get a grip on its own bureaucracy – they do not have anyone at CIA yet and FBI remains under Republican rule as do the AGs; and the Courts are Federalist. And yet every hesitation, every minor delay, every reverse is met with a vast surge of defeatism and feckless anger by the “progressive” left.
No. President Obama is squandering good capital – “empowering the Republicans” by giving them a veto over his agenda. Mr. Obama forgot he had a decisive win!!!
There’s no making nice with GOP people who publicly declare they wish you to fail. Moreover you do not negotiate by giving away the store before you sit down to talk –
I 1000% agree with this view, deserves the full quote:
In response to what you are saying: Obama is, sadly, much to blame for giving the Republicans so much leverage. He defined the challenge as biparitsanship not saving the U.S. economy. Right now, he has only one chance to re-set this deteriorating debate: He needs to give a major speech on the economy, explain to Americans what is happening and what must be done. People will, as of now, still listen to him — and what else is his political capital for?
Speaking as a strong Obama supporter who put my energies and money into it, I am now very disillusioned with him. He spent the last two weeks empowering Republicans — including negotiating with them to get more into Senate and his administration and giving them virtual veto-power over his agenda — and also spending time on his personal cool-guy image (as in interview before the Super Bowl). The country is in danger and he ran for president to solve this crisis in a socially inclusionary way. He should be fighting on that front all the time with all his energies — and he certainly should give a major speech to help educate the public and shape the agenda. That is the least he can and should do. Only that will bypass the media-conserative dynamic that is now in charge.
On the stimulus, we’re fiddling and half of the cities are burning. The depression has begun as hyper-inflation cometh:
Insurance companies are teetering, canceling annuity and pension benefits. 84% of U.S.Cities facing budget woes. And Auto suppliers need a $20.5 bln bailout.
Thats a good idea. Obama should use the “bully pulpit” to address the nation. Tell us why the stimulus needs to pass and why it will succeed.
Time is running out.
I would hawrdly describe 58 to 41 as “a very weak majority in the senate” — and when Franken gets there (and he will) it’ll be 59 to 41. Perfect example of the doom and gloom attitude Booman’s talking about.
Well, that 58 includes a lot of blue dogs and worse. Obama would be naive not to worry about a repeat of what happened to Clinton and Carter with similar senate majorities.
Well, yes, but the thinking is, he should be able to pick up moderate Republicans, the GOP no longer votes as a monolith. BooMan has explained this very well. Sounds plausible, and I hope it works out that way.
It’s as if this is the one chance to do anything good.
Please cite the page of HR-1 on which the money for Hollywood occurs. I read through all 647 pages and somehow missed that one.
Let’s see if this link works. Here’s the text.
Here’s the roll call.
I have no idea where the earmark was in HR1.
Thanks. It’s page 475 and following.
I got lost in the tax provisions. They are written in a very arcane way.
See the problem. Transparency. When will it get to Congress. Wonder who put this provision in to begin with? It would be interesting to track the legislative history of this little provision.
I hate to gnaw on this one, but something is very interesting about this tax provision.
Here is a summary of the tax provision from Obey’s bill HR-1.
The underlined portion is very interesting. That’s where the allowance of movies and videotapes as depreciable property is in the Senate bill. The word “extend” seems to indicate that this general provision was an extension of some of the Bush tax cut stuff. I wonder if this got put in during markup in the Appropriations committee in order to satisfy some Republican member of the committee. Would be interesting to track this down.
I wouldn’t be too hasty in blaming Obey.
You did? The whole thing?
Wow. You’re committed.
Either that, or you ought to be.
The idea that Obey and co. filled the stimulus with targets for the Republicans has to be an embarrassment for Obama. Health care and family planning belong in a health care bill. Help for Philippino veterans belongs in a veterans bill.
Your comment that Dems are addicted to marginality is a deep one. It’s hard to imagine what they are thinking. Clean up the bill and pass it.
Move on, for Pete’s sake.
I’m not quite so indifferent about the Hollywood money. I mean, if it had stayed in, would that have meant that movie stars’ pay would be capped at $500,000?
I’d kind of like to have seen that!
The problem isn’t that the bill will pass. The Republicans have to let something pass. The trick is the GOP wants to make sure that what passes is so weak in the actual stimulus department that it becomes firing a rubber band at a crashing jumbo jet.
Once again Obama is allowing the Republicans to frame the entire argument. Once again, the Village Idiots are going right along with it because they get to influence the country.
If you get nothing else out of the last 2 weeks, know this: the GOP has to make sure the economy fails and fails spectacularly. If Obama saves the country FDR-style, the GOP is done for generations. If on the other hand they can blame Obama for the depression they make major gains in 2010 and 2012 and beat progressives over the head with Obama’s failure (and it will be his failure, fair or not) for years.
Pass a crappy stimulus, blame Obama when we spiral into 25% unemployment. Given what we know about Republican behavior over the last eight years, when given a choice between helping Obama save this country at the expense of their own power or having the opportunity to profit from America’s near destruction, which choice do you fucking think they are going to take?
And frankly at this point I don’t think there’s anything Obama can even do to save America. I think we’re truly fucked to the point of a global meltdown that’ll probably involve a whole lot of wars and death and perhaps a nice Armageddon while we’re at it.
Ten years ago if you told me where we would be right now, today, facing a economic catastrophe with the world at stake, I would have laughed you out of the room.
I’m not laughing anymore. I’m scared. Terrified. Angry. Frustrated. I want the one guy we have to fight back, and he’s not. He needs to. Now.
We all need to.
but I think Baucus was the one who put in the Hollywood money. It’s the same tax break on writedowns that almost every other industry gets, but whatever. I’m fine with trimming a billion or two from the bill IF it gets a few GOP votes.
But I’m really upset that Obama pre-compromised on all those tax cuts. Agreeing to add $100 billion in tax cuts at this stage of the game, as opposed to before the game started, would look a hell of a lot better. It would give the GOP some victory to claim. Instead they are trying to trim $50-200 billion from the bill and make that their victory.
Hopefully Obama and Reid keep the Blue Dog Senators in check. So far they’ve done alright on the amendments. I just hope they shoot down the crazy Collins/Nelson plan to slash spending by $50 billion. We shall see.
Once again, what will you do for us if we prove right on this? It’s not going to affect much but we might as well get some schadenfreude for being right besides the end of civilization.
The Democrats could cut the $3-billion that they put into the stimulus bill to re-invigorate the Byrne Grants for multi jurisdictional drug task forces. The GAO called these grants counter-productive to good policing. These grants have funded massive arrests of poor minorities like the victims in the Tulia, Texas case.
Even Bush tried to zero out these grants because they put too much local policing power into the hands of federal police.
If you care about civil rights and social justice you will tell your members in congress to cut the Byrne Grants to ZERO! Money for police to arrest and imprison poor people does not contribute to growing the work force. It simply is not stimulus.
rather than the color of his skin I, as a lifelong social justice, civil liberties and human rights advocate, found it impossible to vote for or support Barack Obama for president.