Pelosi To House GOP: Be Thankful For What You Have

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a message for House Republicans who think they weren't given enough time to debate or amend the stimulus package that moved through Congress over an eight-day period earlier this session: You could have had much less.

"To tell you the truth, I could have fast-tracked this much faster," Pelosi, a California Democrat, told a group of reporters and progressive writers at a breakfast gathering Tuesday.

Pelosi had been asked about an anonymous White House aide's suggestion that the administration didn't approve of the speed with which the Speaker handled the package.

"Let me get this straight," she said. "You're the president of the United States; you have a recovery package that you want done by the president's break; we get that done -- and we 'fast tracked it over the president's objections'? It couldn't be farther from the truth."

Pelosi also denied assertions that she has instructed the White House not to talk to her members without going through her first. She said she told the administration: "Talk to the members. Talk to the chairmen. Talk to the different caucuses. They have a lot of ideas."

She rejected the notion that she keeps a grudge list of folks who have crossed her, saying that every day is a new day. "They're saying I keep a list of members. It couldn't be farther from the truth. My commitment is to all of my members," she said. "I don't have any list."

Republican objections that they were not included and didn't approve of the process through which the stimulus was passed, said Pelosi, only mask ideological differences that they had with the bill. "We gave them the regular order," said Pelosi. "We were not going to go backward and adopt their economic failed policies and that's what they're upset about."

Comments

[lagumbo]

Nancy you give it to them. I remembered they laughed at you once in congress, now you have the last laugh. Don't cut those fools any slack. They have ruin our country and they want to continue the same failed policies. Let them know it is a new day in Washington and our government.

[BBLOND]

You guys voted for change and we are going to get it. A socialized nation. At the end of all these changes that's all I will have in my 401K -change GO RUSH

[super]

You still have a 401K? You better go check; W had Hank Paulson rename it to a 101K before he left.

[HumeSkeptic]

You guys voted for change and we are going to get it. A socialized nation.
----------
Thank you for your confidence in us. Yes, "socialized" sounds great. Thank you.

[robertny49]

You can thank the policies of the people you helped put in power for your 401K situation. I just love how the Liberals are all of the sudden responsible for the mess you Rebublicans created, what a joke. You should be hanging your head in shame for what you people of done to this country.

[knowhelpnow]

We were already a socialized nation only it was for the elite and corporations.

[TomTheAlmostUgly]

Oh horrors, SOCIALISM! Better to have government agencies spying on me, Americans dying in b***s**t wars, the economy tanked, and salmonella in my peanut butter, than SOCIALISM!

[Vieux Charles]

1993 all over again. We know how that ended.

[MsLiz]

Yeah, my sister got pregnant.

[bradleybt]

Ha! Nice!

[LeftofCentaur 08]

LOL

[ravenshroud]

I think it became 1994. Is that right?

[traveler501]

yeah...it ended by you guys looking like fools (and adulterers if I recall correctly.­..Gingrich­, Livingston etc). despite all that you did to Clinton, he still handed the next guy a sweet situation. too bad we know how THAT ended as well!

[Vieux Charles]

This "adulterers" thing, does it have anything to do with MsLiz's sister getting pregnant?

[torrrep]

You mean the "sweet situation" of a downsized military, decimated intelligence agencies, and terrorists running around our country learning how to fly 747's? Yeah that was pretty sweet.

[helenwheels]

We shouId aII be so Iucky.

[LindaLeigh]

President Obama seems to want to be bi-partisian but Nancy Pelosi continues to keep that from happening. She has way too much power and she's going to do whatever it takes to keep the country as separated as possible. One day, hopefully soon, President Obama will get tired of letting her have her way and run the country like he wants to.

[MsLiz]

Please see my other post regarding the three brances of government.

[LindaLeigh]

I learned about the three branches of govenment when I was in high school. I also stand by my comment. Thank you.

[super]

Obama and Nancy are "good cop" and "bad cop" but they're both on the same team. It takes two teams playing to do bi-partisian; right now we have one team playing and one just blocking.

[knowhelpnow]

Cry me a river; the repugs are the ones that don't want to play nice an never have, my goodness they have Limbo for their talking head that ought to tell you something.
I say go for it Nancy, in fact don't even let them contribute anything it just makes everything get water down. The stimulus package watered down with 43% tax relief give me a break the tax cuts got us into this mess. When your unemployed why would you need tax breaks it should have all been to create jobs and new green energy which by the way we need. If you believe the GOP rhetoric that we are not in a global climate change created by green house gases there is nothing we can do for you, we will just have to save you sorry arse anyway just like the Dem's have to clean up the deficit after the repug's get control of this country let us hope that we have finally learn that people are just to greedy to have anything trickle down.

[Michelle Mixon]

Michael Steele can learn a lot from this woman.

[freethinkergirl]

Nancy, make them READ AND WEEP.......(www.commondreams.org/views04/0608-01.htm)

Ronald Reagan RAISED TAXES, two large tax increases followed his 1981 tax cut. No peacetime president has raised taxes SO MUCH ON SO MANY PEOPLE AS REAGAN.

The first Reagan tax increase came in 1982. Reagan sharply rolled back corporate tax cuts, and a smaller rollback of individual income tax cuts. Over all, the 1982 tax increase undid about a third of the 1981 cut; as a share of G.D.P., the increase was substantially larger than Mr. Clinton's 1993 tax increase.

Mr. Reagan's second tax increase was the Social Security Reform Act of 1983, which followed the recommendations of a commission led by Alan Greenspan. Increasing the payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare hospital insurance.

For many middle/low-income families, this tax increase more than undid any gains from Mr. Reagan's income tax cuts. In 1980, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.

President Reagan's economic policies still saddled the nation with trillions of dollars in debt.

Unlike Bush, Reagan, confronted with evidence that his tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, changed course. President Bush, confronted with similar evidence actually pushed for even more tax cuts.


The rest is history...­..........­.

[zukervati]

Oh how I love thee .... thanks for the link and the post.

In a short post you've identified the collective memory of a nation that's been no better than a gnat's! Haven't we learned from the apathy, disengagement, lack of discourse, introversion and gluttony, which has basically given the Rethuglicans an open license to screw us for a very long time.

For example, they opposed the health care reform in the nineties, calling it socialized medicine - as if there's something wrong with that. If the health care reform had passed in the mid-nineties, Detroit auto industry might have been able to weather this storm. Not so, a single "issue ad" that was run with the infamous "Harry and Louise" derailed that completely. Were the Americans that short-sighted and naive, apparently so.

GM, Ford and Chrysler kept competing with Japanese and German auto manufacturers, who had their health care subsidized by their Governments. On the contrary, the American automakers had to add nearly 6K to the bottom line of each car to pay for health care - it's all a tax, regardless of who pays it.

I've never understood why anyone with a 9-5 job, regardless of white or blue collar, would vote Rethug. Their blind faith in the "free market", shoot-firs­t-ask-ques­tions-late­r mentality coupled with the nauseating narrow mindedness centered around Guns, God and Gays has lead us to this edge of the cliff - off of which we're about ready to tumble!

[romangod]

HAHAHAHAHA­HAHAHAHAHA­HAHAHA

[MT-Eman]

An Orwellian re-write..­...Goebell­s would be proud of you!! You go girl!

[starrianna]

Crack the whip, baby!

[Girl28]

Nancy is pretty hard on her republican colleagues. I love it! Keep up the good work!

[incredulousnyc]

For some of the less eloquent, I implore you to learn the difference between these words:

1.There, Their, They're
2. Who's, Whose
3. Our, Are
4. Hear, Here
5. Through, Threw
6. We're, Wear, Where
7. Waist, Waste

I don't mean to insult anyone, but c'mon!

[j0em0mma]

This isn't a term paper.

[MsLiz]

No, but it is written communication and it goes on our permanent records.

[marxmarv]

That's right. It's not a term paper. It's your LIFE.

I encourage discrimination due to poor spelling.

[MsLiz]

8. Your, You're

[mero909]

I can't stand when people misspell "definitely". I can usually forgive everything else. :)

[KJLSanDiego]

Right? Especially since Huff Po has spell check!

[nirek]

8. Two ,to, too

[helenwheels]

Can I add: "VoiIa!" not "WhaIIah!"

[LiberalBuzz]

Whiners in the GOP.

[Upchucker]

I think the Repubs, if they had any honor, should APOLOGIZE to each and every American for what they're doing right now! It is divisive and unpatriotic.

[j0em0mma]

lol, but they won't... we're watching an old episode of the Keystone Naz1s... funny if the ramifications for the rest of the world weren't so tragic...

[ChristianEcon.com]

They should apologize for sending everything their ideology has touched into a tailspin. But instead the dig deeper into belief-based denial.

[helenwheels]

They shouId apoIogize for taking up precious space on the pIanet.

[sandpiper1]

And sucking up oxygen.

[mccainsupport]

Dont talk patriotic unless you have sacrificed for you country and you know what that means! Im tired of Democrats not standing behind their troops, democrats not saying the plegde of alligiance in schoo,. telling lies in our history books, taking credit where it is not due, everything has an excuse or disease, saying your sorry is good enough.

Are you one of these people Upchucker because you sound like one?

Have you ever had any Honor and can you prove it?

Have you ever been Patriotic and prove it?

Would you die for your country?

[nancytheragingliberal]

Oh, you poor repubs., Hold on while I wipe the tears from my eyes. What about all of the years you shut out dems, out of meetings, out of everything, including the media. I never saw any sign of Dems when you had your nasty hands on all branches of Gov't for the last 12 to 16 years. As you told us so many times. "Deal with it."

[Michael Rappaport]

Amen. There were a lot of conference committees in the '90s that didn't include any Democrats. Newtie and Trentie were tough mofos.

[bigdem56]

I thinks it's about time that Nancy Pelosi stood up and got the record straight....It's time that the Republicans take responsibility for their policies and schemes that got Bush and his cronies into power and then train-wrecked the country.

[Lavafalls]

They will never take that responsibility. It would be a waist of time. Her job is to get the democratic agenda through the house. Considering how bad the country was effed during the bush years, that is a big enough job.

[lisakaz2]

Yep. I wouldn't give 'em squat until they did that. They had to admit they had no problems being a rubber stamp for Bou$hee before they do anything to show they've changed. Indeed, they haven't. They never concerned themselves with consulting the "other" party when they were in charge but they want to be treated as if tthey are still in charge -- and did sooo well, too. Ridiculous. And, of course, their media enablers think this is legit.

[Zofomofo]

Repugs are such whiners.

Please notice everyone, EVERYTHING the Repugs say about the Dems is exactly what they are.

It is like a sociopathic hyper-projection problem. Or are they just lying maniacs?

[j0em0mma]

a Concatenation of column A and column B

[marxmarv]

Cartesian product, more like.

[twintwine]

The Republican projection creates a mess of lies which leaves others with the arduous task of fact checking.

[helenwheels]

All of the above.

[RebootGuy1]

I'm amused by the Republicans whining they didn't have the opportunity to READ the stimulus bill. Well it was posted here on the Huffington Post for at least 4-5 days (albeit in it's pre Conference Committee form) and we could not only read it here, but we were asked to comb through it and make comments.

I grant you the final bill had a few differences, in that about 100B was CUT from the bill and some items cut by the Senate were restored, but if the Republicans in Congress wanted to actually read the bill, they could have logged into the HuffPost.

Oh wait, they're all too busy apologizing to Rush Limbaugh to read anything. Or on their knees.... genuflecting... before him.....

[joetherealist]

Sure it was here, but it wasn't on Fox, that's all they seem to watch so they missed it.

[helenwheels]

LOL!!

[Trolmaster]

If Republicans give Obama any more of a pain, he should threaten them by saying he'll replace Pelosi with Kunich as house speaker.

[j0em0mma]

Once again, Obama does not control the legislature! We are not doing the Unitary Executive thing in this country.

[Zofomofo]

If Bush/Cheney had there way we would.

[MsLiz]

Please take a civics lesson. The president does not select the Speaker of the House. The Speaker is the person elected by the members of the majority party in the House. And I think you meant Kucinich.

[Atac]

Technically the speaker is voted by all members of the House. But since majority rules, the party with the majority of votes gets the speaker. The House majority leader and minority leader are voted only by their own members.

[lakat]

Kucinich...the best representative we've got!

[dave1111]

I second that.

[mero909]

He's a bit crazy, honestly. I'd rather have Ron Paul in there as House Speaker. That would be made of WIN, my liberal friends.