“WASTEFUL SPENDING,” “PORK,” AND “TAX AND SPEND” ARE THE ONLY WORDS REPUBLICANS CAN USE TO DESCRIBE “THE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT PLAN!”
THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A TIME WHEN I HAVE HAD LESS RESPECT FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY THAN I DO IN THEIR WOEFULLY PETTY REACTION TO THE ECONOMIC CRISIS FOR WHICH THEIR PRESIDENT, THEIR PARTY AND THEIR FAILURE TO OVERSEE THE DEPARTMENTS OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT ARE TO BLAME!
THEIR FAILURE TO EVEN ATTEMPT A BI-PARTISAN SOLUTION TO THE WORST FISCAL CALAMITY IN MODERN TIMES SHOWS HOW BANKRUPT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS BECOME. THEY HAVE NOT HAD AN INVENTIVE IDEA IN MY LIFE TIME!
The Memorial to Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, is best articulated in his own words, “The purpose of government is to do for people what they cannot do for themselves or do so well.”That is precisely why President Obama sponsored and supported “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
It is important to note that all Republicans in the House of Representatives and all but three in the Senate, Senators Collins, Snow and Specter, are opposed to the Recovery of and Reinvestment in our country!
Many contemporary Republicans believe that those who possess wealth have power and those who have power run the world.
Obama’s election proved once and for all that those who have a unique strategy, the knowledge to implement that strategy and who invite the common man to join his cause, to own his cause, to allow the average person on the street to be actively engaged in his cause and to permit the common man to share in the power he acquires. He can defeat the arrogant, the conceited who are swelled with pride, who are perpetually peeking in the mirror and in hushed tones asking, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall who is the most powerful Americans of all?” and restore our country to its rightful owner—the American people.
We have just emerged from an era when the rich and the arrogant have ruled this nation for nearly thirty years, who believed that if the president did it, thought it, or believe it, that it was legal and ethical.
My wife and I recently saw Ron Howard’s new the movie Nixon/ Frost. For the first time, the American public gets to examine the inner workings of Nixon’s mind. This poor man believed that if the president did it, it was, in fact, legal, and that he could not be touched by law because of the power of the president.
George W. Bush and his comrade in crime, Dick Cheney, also believe that whatever action the president orders is legal, is legitimate, is above and beyond legal constraints of the constitution.
Since these two men left office a few weeks ago, there has been an increasingly clamor for the new Justice Department and /or the Congress to investigate some of the actions of the Bush administration believed by many to be illegal. There are those, here and abroad, who want to see several members of the Bush inner circle to be prosecuted for torture of prisoners and illegal wiretaps and eavesdropping on private U. S. citizens. Others see a crime in the manner in which the Bush administration concocted the lies and exaggerations that were the bases for the preemptive invasion of Iraq.
Others believe that Dick Cheney violated innumerable U. S. laws in establishing an energy policy in cahoots with the energy companies that were to be regulated by the federal government and the various policies the energy company executives conjured up.
To many of us the last three decades have been a nightmare, but the last eight have been horrendous--the worse by far. And George W. Bush left office the most hated man to sit in the Oval Office by Americans and people the world over.
Having been abandoned by the majority of the voters on November 4, 2008 the Republicans for a short time went to the doghouse to lick their wounds. However, after contemplating what happened to them at the polls, they have rationalized the voters’ blunt decision in their own minds and have decided that it was only George W. Bush that screwed up, that the American people still believe in their ancient belief in a free market philosophy that allows banks, insurance companies, quasi-government agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and brokerage houses to operate free of the impediments of government regulation.
Goldwater sang this antiquated song, Reagan repeated it over and over again like a broken record, and the Bushes formed the Family trio of George H. W., George W. and Jeb, even after the disaster we are now encountering, even after the near demise of our banking system, after the downfall of the real estate market we once knew, after the total evaporation of credit, millions of foreclosures, millions of bankruptcies, and our foreign affairs in shambles, jobless numbers that remind us of America 70 years ago, our infrastructure on the verge of collapse, and a Republican Party that continues to sing their same old song.
Obama came to Washington with the sincere belief that our citizens wanted the two parties to work together. He sought a bi-partisan resolution to the recovery program, the banking bailout and the jobs programs to put out people back to work.
He went to the Capitol to meeting privately with the Republicans, he invited them to the White House, he called many of them personally and he appointed three GOP members of his Cabinet. The leadership of the minority party said they weren’t consulted, that they were kept out of the process of writing the legislation for recovery and they lied out of the mouths on both of their two-faces.
I have never been more disgusted with an opposition party since Tom DeLay and Dick Armey impelled the impeachment process against Bill Clinton
There is something in the many of the people who call themselves Republicans that is genuinely mean, if not evil.
Not only did the leadership of the Republican Party put out the word that all members of the Party were to vote a resounding “no” on the Recovery and Reinvestment act that will slowly bring our economy to its feet again, but the members followed like praying mantis to the death.
Knowing how critical the situation is, knowing how badly millions of our people are hurting financially, these SOB’s unanimously voted against the bill along with ten Democrats all of whom should be tarred and feathered.
In the Senate, three Republicans supported the American people and the new president—Collins, Snow and Specter—and they are being burned at the stake by Republican blogs, the colleagues in the House and Senate for abandoning their brilliant party leadership.
Gov. Charlie Crist, who was gracious enough to accompany the new president on his first trip to Florida since the election, is being trampled by members of his party who have come unglued over the fact that this bright and popular governor is supporting the Recovery Bill to bring jobs to his state and aid in the ruinous slide of the Florida real estate market.
Richard Lugar from Indiana, normally a smart and cooperative conservative, refused to ride in Air Force One to Elkhart this week as Obama addressed a crowd gathered in a city with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country (15%). Lugar refused to pay the president the courtesy he deserved when visiting in his home state, but on day Lugar looked petty and childish.
But it was Judd Gregg, Senator from New Hampshire, who sought the job of Secretary of Commerce in the Obama cabinet, received President Obama’s nomination for the post, but this week called a news conference and withdrew. Now hear me well, this weasel from New Hampshire sought out the job, wanted to be Secretary of Commerce and because of pressure from the mental dwarfs on his side of the aisle felt that he was deserting the party and like the wimp that he is, he dropped out. I would hope that if I was in a war, Judd Gregg would be fighting on the side of my enemy. From me to Judd Gregg—“Your are a wienie”
Last evening, while watching Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, John Sununu, the former Governor of New Hampshire and the new chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party made a total fool of himself in attempting to argue against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Contending that the Obama bill will put this nation and our nation’s children into a debt from which we may never recover, Sununu coughed up the same old failed Republican formula for catastrophe. He insisted that the best way to get people and companies to spend money and thus revitalize the economy is a steep reduction in corporate and capital gains taxes. Trickle down, trickle down—oh mighty God, let it trickle down.
As a typical Republican, the Governor is so far behind in his understanding of modern economics that he thinks he is right. However, he is not right; he is wrong, dead wrong. Please guys come with some new ideas. You are getting boring.
Obama is recommending a serious tax cut for all citizens who earn less than $250,000, i.e. 90% of the people. These are the people whose income has dropped $2,000 since Bush took office in 2001. These are the people who are losing their jobs, the health insurance, whose kids can no longer afford to go to college, who have increased the business at McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’ because they cannot afford to eat anywhere else and cannot afford to buy a new car because of the uncertainty of their jobs and the national economic outlook.
I have reached the conclusion after this week, after watching the Republican Party [with the exception of three courage and selfless Senators] act like lemmings who follow their leadership even to the death, that they do not give a damn about people, about the country’s financial health, about jobs, about our security, our educational system, our roads, bridges, and inner city facilities.
America is in this predicament because ever since the miserable administration of Ronald Reagan, government has been the enemy. The former president said numerous times, “Government is not the solution to our problems, it is the problem.” Reagan who accomplish nothing that he promised to do during the campaign, left office with nearly three times the debt we had when he entered, and more employees on the federal payroll.
I did my clinical training at St. Elizabeth’s Mental Health Center in Washington, when Reagan viciously slashed the budget, he forced thousands of patients in our mental health hospitals including St. E’s on to the streets of our cities to spend winter nights hovering over the cities heating vents. He abandoned the weak and for a man who was so wildly embraced by the religious right, did not attend church on any regular basis.
After watching the shenanigans of the Republican Party this week all the way from the New National Chairman, to the leader of the House Boehner (some pronounce it phonetically—boner-- and the President Pro Temp McConnell of the Senate I, along with the rest of the world, have witnessed the most calloused group of politicians ever gathered together in Washington.
In a letter received today from Noah Winer of MoveOn. Org/Political action, he wrote:
“ They (Republicans) actually tried to replace the whole stimulus bill with tax cuts for the rich. And the worst part is, they were partially successful—they gutted funding from some of the most progressive programs, like school construction and affordable health care.
We need to make sure voters back home know what these Republicans are up to. Because if we don't, they'll do it again. They'll weaken or block every important piece of legislation this year.”
We are in this predicament today because of neglect on the part of the Republican Party—they have neglected to encourage businesses to remain in America and employ American workers; they have neglected our infrastructure, they have neglected our national security where still on 5% of the cartons entering our ports are inspected, where our borders are no safer now than they were eight years ago. People in the middle class are making less money while the rich has gotten dramatically more prosperous. Over 120,000 people die each year for want of health insurance. They have failed to provide the oversight necessary to keep our banks from hijacking depositors’ funds in schemes that failed and dragged the entire country to its knees in one of the most costly recessions in history.
ADDENDUM
The Associated Press and Yahoo News carried this article on February 14, 2009:
With a record-busting stimulus plan, the U.S. is marshaling resources against economic catastrophe in ways not seen since Franklin Roosevelt put the New Deal in motion.
President Barack Obama is going with the best deal he could get. The stimulus bill is a landmark legislative achievement for a new president who inherited economic spoilage along with the spoils of power. Now the nation anxiously waits to see if it works.
Undermining federal balance sheets that were already deeply in the red, Obama and Congress settled on a nearly $800 billion plan that aims to spend more on the crisis at hand than the government has spent waging the Iraq war for six years.
The idea: fast cash, and lots of it, but with a strategic view to the future.
Some dollars will flow quickly into wallets — and right out again.
The stimulus plan will mean thousands of dollars in tax breaks for first-time home buyers and people buying new cars. Lower- and middle-income taxpayers will get an extra $13 a week in their paychecks this year, and about $8 a week next year. Unemployment checks will go up $25 a week, and keep coming longer. Food stamp benefits for 30 million Americans will rise. Short-term health insurance will become more affordable for many losing their jobs.
The success of the stimulus package may be measured less by visible achievements than by what does not happen — the home that is not foreclosed, the family that doesn't slip into poverty, the disease that does not go undiagnosed.
"The one thing we'll never know is what would have happened if we didn't do it," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight.
It's not FDR's deal and these aren't his times.
No federally subsidized artists will paint murals glorifying the muscle of American workers or the progress belching from smokestacks, as they did in Roosevelt's day.
No grand compact is to be formed between generations like the one that promised everyone a federal pension. No institutions will rise to try something brand new.
"We're not reinventing government," said historian Kenneth C. Davis, author of the best-selling "Don't Know Much About" series. "We're modifying things that exist."
Yet as the share of the economy taken up by federal spending rises toan anticipated 30 percent, the nation is grappling again with big questions about Washington's place in people's lives.
"The stakes are so high now, this is such a big bill, average Americans are following it," says Princeton historian Julian Zelizer. "It's become a bill that is an argument about what government can or can't do.
Obama said it's about more than that, and drew parallels with FDR in speaking Friday to the Business Council, formed by corporate leaders in the 1930s to advise Roosevelt's administration.
"We adapted, we changed," he said about those days — and these. "President Roosevelt understood the new role of government in this new world, that while extraordinary actions on its part might be the source of recovery, no action on the part of government, no matter how extraordinary, would alone be the source of our prosperity."
In his radio address Saturday, Obama said he believed the country "will turn this crisis into opportunity and emerge from our painful present into a brighter future."
Democrats and just enough Republicans in Congress — three — saw the package as the best chance to tamp down the economic wildfires breaking out across the landscape.
Obama came into office saying he wished to be judged on his first 1,000 days instead of the usual benchmark of 100. In some ways he will be judged on his first 10 or 20.
Not even Roosevelt, fast off the mark to deal with a bank crisis, was as fast as this in achieving something so sweeping, so early.
The enormity of the package left politicians grasping for concrete ways to convey its size.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., spoke of a stack of hundred-dollar bills 689 miles high, and of bills wrapped side-by-side that would encircle the Earth nearly 39 times. House Republicans predicted that the package's costs — with interest on the necessary borrowing — could total more than a trillion dollars, enough money to buy about 1,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies for every American.
It was enough to prompt comic Jon Stewart to riff that if you sewed the $100 bills together, "you would make a blanket for Jupiter."
The stimulus wasn't just about throwing cash at the economy, though.
The package is filled with billions for some of the same goals that Obama preached about on the presidential campaign trail — renewable energy and green jobs, computerized medical records, broadband Internet service for underserved areas.
"There are seeds in this bill for long-term change," says Zelizer. "There are things that can develop out of the research that can change our lives."
Obama sounded a drumbeat of warnings about the consequences of failing to act. But Americans didn't need their president to tell them how grim the economic situation was — and could become.
Forty percent of Americans already have been affected by some sort of job problem in the past year, be it unemployment, underemployment, layoffs, reductions in pay or hours, or job losses by members of their households, according to a poll released Friday by the Pew Research Center. Fifty-six percent expect things to be worse or about the same a year from now — and they've got solid grounds for their pessimism.
The country could well suffer a net loss of 2 million to 3 million or more jobs this year, economists believe. And the unemployment rate, now 7.6 percent, could top 9 percent by spring of 2010.
The stimulus pull-together was a colossal game of winners and losers shaped and reshaped by the latest set of hands on the package. The fortunes of people, schools, towns and other varied interests rose and fell in blinks of time.
Buying a first home? You're still in luck — the government plans to give you an $8,000 credit if you buy by the end of November.
A new car? You'll be able to deduct the thousands in sales taxes from your income tax but not — as was initially proposed — your loan interest as well.
One day, the government proposed to pay 65 percent of the cost of health coverage for a year for jobless people who lose their workplace insurance. Days later, it was down to half. Ultimately, the subsidy zigzagged back up to 65 percent, but it expires before the end of the year.
Obama declared an end to pork-barrel politics, but legislators still managed to look out for favorite projects.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was quick to point out that a big chunk of the $8 billion set aside to construct high-speed rail lines could go to a proposed Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas route. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., helped make sure $10 billion was set aside for the National Institutes of Health, a priority of his.
Long after the dust has settled from the horse trading, the government will be seen to have moved with unaccustomed speed on policies normally subjected to years of deliberation and gridlock.
Deficit hawks found their wings clipped as both parties reached for the treasury. Democrats mainly wished to spend; Republicans, mainly to cut taxes.
After last November, guess who got their way?
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said flatly: "We won the election; we wrote the bill."
The debate was both large and small. Negotiators considered the proper role of government — and how fast a business can depreciate its equipment.
Entering the 1930s, Americans mainly saw the national government as the entity that fought wars, ran post offices and enforced a ban on liquor. Federal spending was only 3.4 percent of the economy.
That more than tripled during the New Deal, topping 10 percent, because of the explosion of public works and other labor programs, rural modernization, bank support, and farm and industrial aid.
"It was a transformation of society in a way that hadn't been done since the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery," Davis said.
The government became the entity that guaranteed a minimum wage, controlled farm production, supported artists, set workplace standards, insured deposits in regulated banks and cast the first national safety net for the elderly and handicapped under Social Security.
"The whole scope of what Roosevelt was trying to do is different but the intent is clearly the same: relief and recovery during a time of economic stress," said John Halpin, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
The package won by Obama offers "very important but more subterranean changes in the way the economy works," he said.
Federal spending as a share of the economy shot above 40 percent during World War II and has hovered around 20 percent most of the years since. That share was already projected to approach 25 percent before Obama's stimulus plan.
To be sure, there's still considerable disagreement about how much the New Deal helped to end a depression finally crushed by the humming factories of World War II.
Even FDR's transformation of the federal government was not universally recognized at the time for what it was. It may be years before the full measure of Obama's efforts are taken, too.
2:33:25 PM 
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