Nancy Pelosi is a grade A moron.

Cafferty…fucking dumbass. Do you really think Members of Congress are going to sit through and pore over every detail of a 1,000 page bill? It has NEVER worked that way people, sorry to tell you there's no Santa Claus either. Does Cafferty also think Members of Congress physically write the bills themselves too? No, but most of them will know what are the key things they're voting for. The bulk of the bill was done more than the 48 hours beforehand and drafts were circulated, but final negotiations took longer than thought (oh gee, when does THAT not happen?).

Though I don't agree with everything in the stimulus bill (who possibly could??), the message here was one of urgency. If something DOESN'T get done ASAP, everyone is going to think that Congress and Obama don't care. Ideally, the Republicans should be included in negotiations, and they have been for most of the process. But Big Baby Boehner is trying to make a point, and if you want to talk about pathetic and out of touch leadership, then you need look no further than him. His partisanship is a big reason why the Republicans keep losing seats.

If Congress passes some kind of legislation to address the job issue as soon as possible, they're going to be viewed as pushing something through too fast. Most people are expecting some kind of result soon, and this is Obama's way of trying to do something. Have there been mistakes made? Yes, of course. There's no way we'll all agree on what will go into a stimulus bill, and I don't disagree entirely on some of the comments made about the Democratic leadership, but I'm happy to see at least some people care enough to try something. At least now we have an easier path for those with ideas to implement them in a timely fashion. And after 6 solid years of Republican leadership where they controlled the House, Senate and White House, it's time for the other guys to take a shot at it. Some people need to quit whining, give it a little more time, and then bitch all they want once they see certain results or the lack of them.

Obama just needs to stop this whole bipartisan thing. George W campaigned as a uniter, not a divider, and the one and only clever thing he did was drop the whole charade when he got to office.

The Republicans bleating about how they're not being involved in the process is so fucking stupid that I can't believe they can keep a straight face. I mean, Hastert & Delay constantly bent, changed or ignored the rules to prevent the Democrats from contributing to key legislation, so to see them now whining and moaning about is so mind boggling that I can only conclude that they realize their constituencies are made up of complete morons. Which they are.

exhibit A: manimtired.  not lol.

sweetcell wrote:
exhibit A: manimtired.  not lol.

exhibit b:



and c:

I just feel like i should chime in here…i agree with callat.  :)

btw. . .in response to your statement about what makes obama look weak. . .he looks weak by handing this porkulus mess to pelosi and harry reid.  i think that if obama was being honest about wanting a bi-partisan bill (beyond maine and arlen specter), and i think he was, he should have handled it himself and not hope and changed it away to pelosi, reid and the rest of the congressional democrats.

this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. . . .i mean when the CBO  says that it won't have much effect until 2011, and paul krugman is back-tracking from his own textbook to defend it as a "stimulus", i think the answer is evident about it's immediate effects.

this whole thing has made the republican party look weak. the country is in deep fiscal trouble and all they do is cry about proceedure and semantics, but yet their govenors will indeed take the money the so vehmently oppose

godsshoeshine wrote:
this whole thing has made the republican party look weak. the country is in deep fiscal trouble and all they do is cry about proceedure and semantics, but yet their govenors will indeed take the money the so vehmently oppose

i would agree. . .if they had a real backbone they'd step up and argue that this whole stimulus package is unnecessary to begin with….they only got so far by arguing it's a waste of money (which it is), full of wasteful spending (which it is) and won't accomplish the goals put forward by the administration (and it won't).  i mean, only 36% of the public voiced any sort of support for the thing as of this weekend. . .

as for the governors, well, being a governor versus being a member of congress entails far different responsibilities . . .also, unlike the federal government, states are required to have a balanced budget and can't run a deficit, not to mention that states already rely on federal funding for a large percentage of their overall funding. 

as bernanke once said- a more effective stimulus would be to simply drop money from a helicopter.  if the federal government wants to give away $787 billion, split it up by population and just hand it over to the governors and let them decide how to spend the money, not congress.

It's a necessary bill.  One could quibble with the details – way too much money in tax cuts versus additional money to the states in a foolhardy effort to "reach across the aisle" to the Rush-publicans.  And not enough money to seriously develop a new energy paradigm.  But it's a huge, historic start and hopefully will help us to avoid a dangerous deflationary spiral.

Doctor wrote:
It's a necessary bill.  One could quibble with the details – way too much money in tax cuts versus additional money to the states in a foolhardy effort to "reach across the aisle" to the Rush-publicans.  And not enough money to seriously develop a new energy paradigm.   But it's a huge, historic start and hopefully will help us to avoid a dangerous deflationary spiral.

if you're a keynsian, this isn't enough money, if you follow hayek, this is a foolish attempt by the government to exert its control over something inherently uncontrollable. . .

the tax cuts in this waste is simply foolish and won't do anything (gee, thanks. . .$13 more a month) (i should also note that i thought those stimulus rebates of previous years were a waste of time and money as well). . .there is way too much spending on non-stimulus programs in the bill.  if you want to print your way to increasing federal/state spending, then infrastructure projects would be the way to go; unfortunately, infrastructure spending is well less than 50% of the spending part of the bill and will take several years to show up in the economy.  instead, we get language that starts to unravel welfare reform, makes attempts at protectionism and other pet projects of the democrats.

Venerable is now my hero.  Keep fighting the good fight!