Obama's Fifth Day: GOP Signals Opposition To Stimulus, Obama Announces New Environmental Policy

President Obama on January 25th, his fifth day in office, received strong signals from leading Republican politicians and intellectuals that they would oppose his stimulus package as it is currently written.

House Minority Leader John Boehner and Senator John McCain voiced their opposition to the current stimulus plan on the Sunday morning talk shows.

Think Progress compiled a video of prominent conservative intellectuals Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer slamming the bailout as well. Watch the video below.

The other big news that emerged from Obama's fifth day in office was his intention to reverse a Bush environmental policy that barred California from setting its own fuel-efficiency standards:

The attention to energy comes as Obama heads into his first full week as president, with an agenda dominated by economic woes and a push to get a huge stimulus plan through Congress.

In one key move, Obama is aiming to let California and other states set their own tailpipe emission standards _ without having to get a waiver from the Environmental Protection Administration, as has been the case. The policy change would furnish another alternative for reducing greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, which contribute to global warming. It also would reverse a Bush era policy that put up legal obstacles to California's go-it-alone stance.

And in another policy change, Obama is likely to order the Transportation Department to enact short-term rules on how automakers can improve the fuel efficiency of their new models.

Read about Obama's first day in office.

Read about Obama's second day in office.

Read about Obama's third day in office.

Read about Obama's fourth day in office.

Read HuffPost's Obama First 100 Days BigNews Page

Comments

[tdubssurf]

It has been estimated that California could receive more than $25 billion (the Greater Los Angeles Area receiving around $6 billion) of the nearly $800 billion in aid, made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA. More than $70 billion of the bill has been directed towards investment in renewable, and green technologies...

http://www.caivp.org/article/taxes/2009/2/24/california-gets-stimulatedor-does-it

[ArthurTwoShedsJackson]

Friends, President Obama and Democrats trying to reason with the Republicans is exactly like post-Glasnost Gorbachev trying to reason with the old line communists. Sheer futility.

Yeah that's right: diehard right wingers = diehard post-Glasnost commies.

Right wingers, like the post-Glasnost commies were, are angry and [waah waah] hurt that they have lost their power after years of arrogance, incompetence and cynically following their discredited ruinous policies.

The question is whether any moderate Republicans will choose to break away from the right wing lunacy.

The President extended a hand to the right wingers but they wouldn't unclench their fists. I will give you 3 guesses and the first 2 don't count where they can PUT their fists.

[PhilipTaylor]

GOP apparently has not changed much from 1929:

In 1929 under Hoover wealthy Treasury secretary, Paul Mellon, saw the downturn as a force for good. "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate," he said. "People will work harder, live more moral lives." That turned out well!

We need to work our way out of this as quickly as possible. The longer you wait the "DEEPER the HOLE GETS" so do the SMART things and get this economy moving.

Economic Flow = Industry + Consummer + Exports + Government = 0+0+0+STIMULUS

[SierraL]

Yeah...Because the "Bush tax cuts "to the richest Americans worked so well!!

Try again.....

[SailFree]

Basing economic policy on a rapidly unraveling global warming theory makes no sense--unless the goal is to just destroy the economy of the USA and western civilization.

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090125/NATIONAL/688880349/1010/enewsletter