For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage. What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.
WASHINGTON — Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Thursday for an $819 billion economic recovery plan as Congressional Democrats sought to hold down their own difference over the enormous package of tax cuts and spending. As a piece of legislation, the two-year package is among the biggest in history, reflecting a broad view in Congress that urgent fiscal help is needed for an economy in crisis, and at a time when the Federal Reserve has already cut interest rates almost to zero.
But the size and substance of an economic stimulus package remain in dispute, as House Republicans blamed Democrats for a package that tilted heavily toward new spending instead of tax cuts. All but 11 Democrats voted for the plan and 177 Republicans voted against it. The 244-188 vote came a day after Mr. Obama traveled to Capitol Hill to seek Republican backing — if not for the package then on future issues…
barely got Humpty together again…
Bipartisan does not mean agreement. It means responsibly engaging in the issue at hand rather than playing powerball party politics. It would be fine if they were seriously engaged in trying to find a solution to the problem [they created]. It would be fine if they were making counter-proposals that might work. It would even be fine to vote this way, if it came from conviction. But I don’t think so. The Republicans in Congress are not the injured party, the American people are the injured party.
I fully expect to see a media campaign against the Stimulus Package from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Talk Shows with Republican Congressmen, and a rash of very nasty bloggers’ posts. I expect there will be sarcasm, contempt, disdain, self-righteousness, all the usual suspects. I expect nasty letters to the editor in our rural weekly paper. And as the economy inevitabely drifts downward, I anticipate hearing even more of that kind of talk. If something works, it will be discounted as something that would’ve happened anyway. If something doesn’t work, we’ll hear a chorus of "We told you so."
Gallup: Vanishing Red-State America
A Center-Right Nation No More
by: Paul Rosenberg
Jan 28, 2009 at 17:15
"State of the States: Political Party Affiliation", the first in a four-part series to be released this week on Gallup.com, based on Gallup Poll Daily tracking data collected throughout 2008. And the results could not be clearer: GOP plurality states [including leaners] have been reduced to a mere handful: the Mormon mountain heartland, plus Alaska and Nebraska. That’s it…
Republican chutzpah astonishes me. They lost the vote on the economic recovery bill; yet they’re crowing as if they had won. Well, I guess in their twisted view, they did win the battle they were fighting — to keep Obama from getting a bipartisan bill.
But they went futher, demonstrating their confusion about who’s winning. They made taunting comments, like “Now maybe he (Obama) will tell Pelosi to work with us.” Why? They passed a bill; why weaken it even more to appease the losers? Duh !!!!