You hear a lot of talk these days about the necessity of bipartisanship. But Democrats and Republicans in Congress can't seem to agree on the meaning of the word. For Democrats, it apparently means compromising on everything and watering legislation down until a few Republicans are willing to vote for it. For most Republicans it means finding unity in opposition, threatening to filibuster, constantly contradicting yourself and generally being assholes. For Judd Gregg it means doing a highly partisan back room deal on Monday afternoon and denouncing bipartisanship Tuesday morning.
Paul Krugman is absolutely right:
Obama may be able to get a few Republican Senators to go along with his plan; or he can get a lot of Republican votes by, in effect, becoming a Republican. There is no middle ground.
That isn't the change we were promised.
For all of the pandering, the "moderates on both sides" are now getting ready to gut the budget, and prove that the only thing the[y] believe in is a failed ideology of "supply side economics." Cut taxes, raise defense spending, screw the poor. The budget will magically balance itself.
That isn't the change we were promised.
During the Bush years, the best interests of our country took a back seat to the GOP's failed ideology. Right now, it looks like the best interests of our country are taking a back seat to the failed ideology of "bipartisanship".
That isn't the change we were promised.
Despite all of this, Democrats and the political press remain enamored with this elusive concept of bipartisanship. Here are some examples from the past few days:
President Obama, on 2.3.09:
With the stakes this high, we cannot afford to get trapped in the same old partisan gridlock.
"There are efforts being made at this time on a bipartisan basis to take certain things out of the bill," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., acknowledged. Democrats could also be open to incorporating Republican ideas...
Dick Durbin, on 2.3.09:
Democratic leaders conceded they may soon be obliged to cut billions of dollars from the measure. "It goes without saying if it's going to pass in the Senate, it has to be bipartisan," said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democratic leader.
The fact is, you don't need much in the way of bipartisanship to pass a bill. 60 is 60 no matter how you put it together. Obama's apparent desire to get 80 votes in the Senate was clearly way off base.
Let's drop futile attempts to appease those who caused our problems in the first place, and stay focused on cleaning up the mess they left.
If we are going to get any of the transformational "change" we were promised throughout the campaign, President Obama is going to have to take the gloves off at some point. With the economy cratering and seemingly getting worse daily, now might be a good time to do so. This idea that we can turn this economy around by caving to the feckless demands of those who screwed it up in the first place is utterly bankrupt.
Finally, after a week of disappointments, President Obama has taken a step in the right direction, at least rhetorically. In an Op-Ed in today's Washington Post, the president writes:
In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.The true test will come in conference committee next week, where I'm hearing the White House plans to have a disproportionate role in shaping the final version of the recovery package. It is time for President Obama to reject the idea that tax cuts will save the economy in practice, rather than just in theory.
I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.Every day, our economy gets sicker -- and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.
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Senate Stimulus Bill (Full Text)
Updated on February 8 The pdf is now available. * * * * * Updated on February 8 The compromise Senate stimulus bill has been...
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Obama says differences shouldn't delay stimulus
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Monday that "very modest differences" over a massive package to revive the economy should not delay its swift passage,...
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Obama White House Losing Patience On Stimulus
Underscoring the reality that GOP opposition to the stimulus seems firmly entrenched, the Obama administration mounted a more aggressive stance in favor of the recovery...
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STD Money, Recovery.gov, The Patriot Act: HuffPost Readers Dig Through The Stimulus
More money to battle STDs. Recovery.gov stripped out. A nod to the Patriot Act. Huffington Post readers have taken a preliminary look at the Senate...
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Top Dem Senator: "Hundreds Of Billions More" Needed For Bank Bailouts
Sen. Kent Conrad, chairman of the Budget Committee, warned Monday that the financial sector would need "hundreds of billions more" in federal dollars before the...
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Senate Looks To Boost Mass Transit, Highway In Stimulus
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Tuesday to give a tax break to new car buyers, setting aside bipartisan concerns over the size of an economic...
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Where Is The Stimulus Shock And Awe?
During a November 25 press conference, then President-elect Obama promised "a new spirit of ingenuity," declaring that the "old ways of Washington simply can't meet...
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Stimulus, Yes; Bank Bailout II, No
If Obama does his job he will mobilize public opinion and isolate Republicans who would rather sink the economy than give a Democratic president legislative success.
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Economic Stimulus: Investing in Vets Delivers a Huge Bang for the Buck
As the Senate begins to debate the stimulus package this week, our elected leaders must ensure that any plan fully supports the newest generation of veterans and their families.
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Billionaire For A Day: A More Entertaining Economic Stimulus Package
Let's do something to capture all Americans attention and by doing so make the economic stimulus package real to all of us: 800 Americans will each win a billion dollars.
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Bipartisanship Fetishism vs. What's Best for America: Obama Needs to Choose
At tonight's press conference, CBS's Chip Reid asked President Obama about whether, given the lack of bipartisanship on the stimulus bill, the White House was "moving away" from its "emphasis on bipartisanship?" Obama replied that his "bottom line when it comes to the recovery package" is: does it create or save jobs? That's good to hear because the president's actions over the last couple of weeks have left many wondering whether bipartisanship, rather than what's best for America, has been his priority. Perhaps there will come a day when the Venn diagrams of the Republican Party and the national interest actually intersect. But, at the moment, we find ourselves with a GOP whose leaders believe, among other things, that government jobs are not real jobs, and that Obama's stimulus plan is "the socialist way." Hard for bipartisanship to flourish in this kind of atmosphere.
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Palin's Facebook Page: Opposes Obama's Stimulus Plan
We learn on Facebook that Palin has "serious concerns" with Obama's stimulus package. Say what?
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Stimulate Me!
Experts seem relatively unified, if such a thing is possible, on the issue of direct economic stimulus to every taxpayer. They're against it.
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Just imagine: What if McCain Had Won the Election and Obama had Shafted him During the Stimulus Debate?
Um, are McCain's feelings after losing an election the big question on people's minds in the nation? I think the stimulus package is the focus of the country right now, don't you?
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Where's Ross Perot When You Need Him?
I'm ready for a little old fashioned Ross Perot specification of the expected outcomes of the stimulus package. This is what we call in education a "teachable moment."
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Rahm Throws Pelosi Under The Bus To Save Stimulus Bill
The story of the morning seems to be that the Obama team is unhappy with Nancy Pelosi and the House committee chairs for delivering up such a liberal, pork-laden bill that they themselves really had nothing to do with.
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Creating Jobs Is Not "Wasteful"
America voted for a change of direction last November, not more of the same. Republicans should listen to the American people and work in a bi-partisan fashion to help get our country on the road to recovery.
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Our Twin Crises
That we are unable to manage a functioning economy or deal with climate change because rapacious Wall Street traders have disproportionate political clout is a measure of our political dysfunction.
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Steele Crazy After All This Year
We are witnessing, not so much the collapse of the Republican Party, as its slide into insanity. What was the GOP's great accomplishment last week? A show of "unity" enough to block the first stimulus package.
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Patriotic Extortion
Imagine if the Democrats had not pre-capitulated to the Republicans on the stimulus bill. Imagine if they had forced the Republicans to actually mount a filibuster.
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Oh, About That "End" of the Obama Honeymoon ...
Where Obama may have made a mistake is in being too substantively accommodating with people who are basically not going to support him except in the event of an extraterrestrial invasion.
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Command and Control?
At a time when the country is virtually pleading with him to exert command and control, he has yielded that role to congressional partisans that the public doesn't quite know and almost certainly doesn't trust.
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Why the Stimulus is Needed, Part II
Given the decreases in personal consumption expenditures and gross private domestic investment, what are the chances of the consumer spending again or business investing again?
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House vs. Senate Stimulus Bills
Some highlights: The House version would spend $60 billion more on education -- the Senate version adds more than $100 billion for tax cuts to individuals and families.
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A Better Stimulus for the Economy
The problem with our economy is not weak spending, which is just a symptom of our predicament. The root problem is lack of confidence in the future.
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The Truth About the Stimulus Package
Until other countries are willing to do their share to stimulate the global economy, the Obama administration is right to lift our boat first.
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Operation Zero Cred
The GOP with Joe the Plumber on the Hill this week to discuss the economy. They should be summarily shut out of this process -- whether or not the president wants them out.
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Stimulus Package: If You Jump Halfway Across a Chasm You Fall Into the Abyss
If we are going to spend two trillion dollars (and most likely more) trying to deal with the economic crisis, shouldn't we do it right?
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Delusional or Just Cynical?
A good example of the "frothing at the mouth" reaction to the stimulus plan is a blog penned by Jonathan Tobin, Executive Editor of Commentary.
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Change vs. Bipartisanship: What Happens When You Throw a Bipartisan Party and Half the Guest List Stays Home?
The problem with a message of bipartisanship is that it makes it very difficult to tell the story of why things are so bad that we need dramatic change.
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Obama Financial Team to Taxpayers: You'll Get Nothing, and Like It
There's nothing that prevents the public from getting their fair share of any future bank profits appropriate to the high risk investment they are being forced to make.
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No, Seriously: Republicans Don't Get It
Investment in bike paths will not only improve our economy, and take our country in the right direction for the future; it is exactly the kind of investment the American people want.
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Obama's Wake-Up Call
Even as unemployment hits 7.6 percent and shows no signs of slowing any time soon, the GOP is falling over itself to protect the ostentatious privileges and prerogatives of a few financial potentates.
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Selling Stimulus
What the administration needs, and what its senior advisers proved so adept at during the campaign, is a simpler, more compelling, campaign-style message for what this legislation is really about.
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A New Movement
There is a movement to strip billions of dollars from the stimulus bill led by Ben Nelson of Omaha (whose Democratic status is debatable) and Susan Collins (Republican) of Maine.
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Energy Self-Reliance and Our Future
You want my opinion on a stimulus plan? Follow Ohio's example and invest in American energy. All of it.
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Stimulating
As muddled as this economic stage may be -- and all major measures taken in crisis usually are -- it is born of the drive to reconstruct and not profiteer, and that alone is progress to applaud.
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Obama: Use This And the Jobs Bill Will Pass With a 100 Vote Margin
Our best salesman is Obama. There is no house or senate member who this president cannot roll over.
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Pulling the Wool Over Our Eyes
The American people elected President Obama in record numbers to lead our country in a new direction, if the Republicans aren't willing to join him, the least they can do is get out of his way.
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Obama to Speak Monday Night on Stimulus While Rep. Pete Sessions Says Republicans Are the New Taliban
If the media hadn't acted so irresponsibly the past two weeks and President Obama hadn't tried to be so bipartisan, he might not have had to take to the airwaves, but that's not the case anymore.
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Our Phone Calls Are Working, Don't Let Up!
If representatives know that's what their constituents want, they will be both more inclined to keep that critical public investment from the House bill, and act with the speed.
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Obama Undermines Jobs Mandate For the Sake of Bipartisanship
Roosevelt had the New Deal, Kennedy had the New Frontier, Johnson had the Great Society, and Obama has...the stimulus plan. An abstract goal with fungible components that valued process above all else.
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Lions Coach Up Steelers on Stimulus Package
How can anyone take the GOP seriously on economic policy? Agree or disagree on their philosophy; their record is demonstrably terrible. They are the Detroit Lions of Congress.
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Republicans Say They'd Support the "Right" Stimulus Bill, But Stimulus for Them Is Only More Tax Cuts
If you look closely at what the Republicans are saying, this isn't a debate on the merits of this stimulus legislation, but rather another round of policy battles fought during last year's campaign.
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Democrats in Congress Need to Learn How to Lead
I am losing patience with congressional Democrats' innate instinct to capitulate, something that has been evident since the November 2006 mid-term elections.
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He's actually a professional campaigner a speech giver. In fairness, they said the same thing about Regan...
$89 billion for Medicaid
$30 billion for COBRA insurance extension
$36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
$20 billion for food stamps
$79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund
Pure Pork:
$4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
$850 million for Amtrak
$87 million for a polar icebreaking ship
$1.7 billion for the National Park System
$55 million for Historic Preservation Fund
$7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs”
$150 million for agricultural-commodity purchases
$150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”
$2 billion for renewable-energy research ($400 million for global-warming research)
$2 billion for a “clean coal” power plant in Illinois
$6.2 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program
$3.5 billion for energy-efficiency and conservation block grants
$3.4 billion for the State Energy Program
$200 million for state and local electric-transport projects
$300 million for energy-efficient-appliance rebate programs
$400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments
$1 billion for the manufacturing of advanced batteries
$1.5 billion for green-technology loan guarantees
$8 billion for innovative-technology loan-guarantee program
$2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects
$4.5 billion for electricity grid
Summary:
$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
$300 million for grants to combat violence against women
$2 billion for federal child-care block grants
$6 billion for university building projects
$15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships
$4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24
$1 billion for community-development block grants
$4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”
$650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”
$150 million for the Smithsonian
$34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
$500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities
$44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters
$350 million for Agriculture Department computers
$88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building
$448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters
$600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids
$450 million for NASA (carve-out for “climate-research missions”)
$600 million for NOAA (carve-out for “climate modeling”)
$1 billion for the Census Bureau
Part 1...
You should sit around and hope that the State will give you a job... go make it happen, invent something, go back to school, etc...
If Mich McConnell and his ilk want to filibuster, then let them stand in the Senate well and do it while it becomes apparent to the American public that they don't have its welfare in mind.
How you or anyone else say - "This is all the GOP fault, their broken ideas, bla, bla, bla..." just plain wrong!
You lost. Get over it. And screw bipartisanship after the events of the last 2 weeks.
If they dont want to help with the stimulus package, just forget about them and give them NO tax cuts and pass it anyway. Lesson learned. maybe next time they show more of an effort to compromise!.
To the GOP: Tax cuts do not create jobs, stupid! So stop your broken record of asking for them as though you really have a plan! Stop thinking only of your rich cronies and do your part to help the country in time of need. Whatever happened to your slogan," put country first????" or was that just another propaganda?
Giving too much to the rich is what got us in this mess now we need money , jobs and create things that you guys have totally overlooked, like education, healthcare new energy, and infrastructure,,, thats a PLan worth talking about. And please, Stop acting like retarded robots and start behaving like you deserve your salaries and position by accepting REALITY, for once! If not, then let someone who can take your job! You are not indispensible!
Bi-partisanship negates itself.
Also: no disrespect intended but the Senate really really really needs to dump Harry Reid as leader and get someone with a brass pair in there (like Barbara Boxer or Claire McCaskill). He is such a wimp, such a Republican punching bag that it's hurting Obama and the people he (Reid) is supposed to represent. Something needs to be done about this weak Senate leadership ASAP, IMHO.
Obama should read what we all think of this bipartisanship that will lead us down the same path it has every time Republican's called all the shots.If the Republican's can't admit their mistakes and climb on board then forget them and work around them and hopefully one day their whole party will take the door and a new party with some common sense and naturity will be in its place !
The longer plan involves social legislation, which will be impossible in a grossly polarized senate.
An even longer term make-over of America involves draining the puss of ignorance and superstitrion that provides the growth medium for people like Palin and Limbaugh.
Summer school in the university of life for you, buddy.
"He is a rookie", said McCain. He pals around with terrorist, said Palin. He kicked their butts, says I.
His Presidency is starting out the same way. The nay sayers, and the Repubs are pulling out the big guns, trying to shoot him down. They did not learn the lesson he has already taught them. It seems he is beating them with kindness. I was against his style when he would not fight back, but I learned, hes got this! No one is perfect, but you can bet, (and we have bet the future of America) on this. After a bit longer, he will win over the Repubs, or totally destroy them. If he fails, we, that voted for him, will turn against him.
But the nay sayers will never, never change. They can just go home and complain in front of their TVs.
Fox and Rush will keep their jobs, because with them staying where they are, we can see and hear what they do an say. Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.
GO BO!!