"Republicants" Deny the Sky is Falling

The sky is falling.

For the average Working Joe or Jane in America, it is anyway. Unemployment is at 7.6 percent and rising. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that there are 4.1 job seekers now for every opening. The mortgage delinquency rate set another record last quarter, and foreclosures are predicted to top 1 million this year. Because of reckless speculation by Wall Street financiers, the stock market is plummeting, taking with it a third of the value of the retirement accounts of hard-working Americans.

If the average Jane and Joe have not lost their jobs, they've seen a big chunk of their retirement savings slip away. Or their kid can't find work. Or a neighbor's been foreclosed on.

Still, Republicans in Congress couldn't find it in their hearts to vote for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, commonly called the stimulus bill. They just can't vote to support the American people - they're "Republicants."

An official description of the act the Republicants rejected says it:

"Makes supplemental appropriations for FY2009: (1) for job preservation and creation; (2) to promote economic recovery; (3) to assist those most impacted by the recession; (4) to provide investments needed to increase economic efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and health; (5) to invest in transportation, environmental protection, and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits; and (6) to stabilize state and local government budgets, in order to minimize and avoid reductions in essential services and counterproductive state and local tax increases."

In the House, not a single Republicant voted for this bill to create jobs and restore economic growth. In the Senate, three brave members of the GOP stood up to the Republicants gang to pass the Recovery Act and aid suffering Americans -- Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

The GOP made it malevolently clear during their majority years in the Bush administration that they opposed anything that would strengthen America's middle class, but its votes this week were based on deep, and frankly justified, fear of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

New York Times Columnist and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman explained it earlier this week at the Thinking Big Thinking Forward conference conducted in Washington D. C. by EPI, Institute for America's Future, The American Prospect and Demos.

Republicans are terrified of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act because if it works, if it creates jobs and helps stimulate the economy, then Americans will think good thoughts about government action and spending.

And that could lead to new public support for government payments for important social safety net programs like health care.

Republicans have invested decades, untold millions of dollars and countless hours on Sunday morning blathering-head shows persuading Americans that government is too big. They've contended that taxes should be cut to force curtailment of government. Bush supporter Grover Norquist, who is president of Americans for Tax Reform and a director of the American Conservative Union, expressed it best for the group: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

They did cut taxes - for the rich. And they cut services - crucial ones, like inspection of toys so that millions of toxic trinkets imported from China got into the hands - and mouths -- of American toddlers. And inspection of food and the factories producing it, so it's possible that salmonella-tainted peanut butter has sickened 500 and killed eight.

And they placed bunglers in charge of important government agencies. This, of course, was deliberate, to make government look incompetent -- an entity deserving of drowning in a bathtub. One of them was the infamous "Brownie," Michael P. Brown, who headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which, in fact, drowned when called to respond to Hurricane Katrina. Brownie's qualification to head FEMA was his service as commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association. By contrast, he replaced James Lee Witt, former President Bill Clinton's FEMA director. Witt won acclaim for good performance in office. His qualification to head FEMA was his tenure as director of the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services.

In addition to cutting service, conservatives eliminated government regulation. The result for America was the subprime mortgage crisis and credit default swaps, an unregulated risky transaction that helped push the nation's financial institutions to the brink.

Americans put up $700 billion to bail out those bankers last fall. But the Republicants don't talk about that when they say, as Republicant Congressman Jerry Lewis of California did on Friday, that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is a recipe for bloated government programs that will saddle taxpayers with debt "well, well into the future."

"Facts are stubborn things," Mr. Lewis said.

Fact is, Mr. Lewis voted to indebt Americans for $700 billion to bail out banks.

So, clearly, spending American taxpayers' money is not a problem for him.

Spending it on taxpayers is.

The Recovery and Reinvestment Act contains about $50 billion for shovel-ready road, airport, bridge and other infrastructure projects nationwide that will create construction and manufacturing jobs. The nation's electricity grid is to be upgraded with $11 billion, creating similar jobs. States will get $54 billion, which will help out Mr. Lewis' California, now $42 billion in debt. That money can go for highway and school building as well as to prevent layoffs of teachers, firefighters and other state workers.

Altogether, the $790 billion Recovery and Reinvestment bill is designed to create or preserve between 3.5 and 4 million jobs.

When the sky is falling, that's some shelter for America's little guys. If President Obama is right and this act succeeds in creating jobs and stimulating the economy, he will have performed a great service for struggling and suffering workers.

He will also have revived what Norquist and Brownie, Karl Rove and Bush tried so hard to waterboard: the concept that government can do good.

Comments

[Michael Nemeth]

I find it silly to think that republicans are against this because they are afraid it will work.
Krugman is a hack with an axe to grind.
For reference, there are other economists out there who think this is a disaster in the making besides the almighty Krugman whose track record of predictions is about as good as a dime store horoscope.
Take Peter Schiff and Gerald Celente for example. Two guys who have accurately predicted this mess and continue to make accurate predictions.
I personally think this will create a dollar crisis of epic proportions. Spending is how we got into this mess, spending more will only dig a deeper hole.
Prepare yourselves for 30.00 hamburgers and 20.00 fries.

[NL207]

"Republicans are terrified of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act because if it works, if it creates jobs and helps stimulate the economy, then Americans will think good thoughts about government action and spending"


Raw projection, liberal projection.

Republicans, Conservatives and Libertarians could not POSSIBLY concerned that this massive government spending binge may be in net harmful to America, as it almost ceratinly is. Long after any positive effects it may have on employment have dissipated, it will be delivering harm to the American taxpayers with compound interest. Those who a compelled to shoulder this ugly burden 30 years from now will curse it.

[Lionsden]

The author of this article is using the same false argument used by womens libbers in the 1970s who said that if you don't support the Equal Rights Amendment, then you don't support equal rights for women.

That is simply not true. I didn't support the ERA and I was and am definitely for equal rights for women. I am a woman.

Republicans support A recovery, they just don't support THE recovery democrat's propose for making that happen.

And to prove that the author of this article isn't thinking clearly about this, Liberatarians, who are definitely not republican or democratic, don't support the democrats recovery proposal either. They are sickened and disgusted by it. Moreso than the republicans.

[RedneckDem]

#1- If you think its a badge of honor for being a woman and not voting for womans rights you're an i d i o t. While the womans lib movement wasn't perfect, like the stimulus, it was and is a move in the right direction.

#2- Libertarians are right of even the most far right repubs when it comes to anything government so the fact that they are against the stimulus is a no-brainer to put it lightly (i.e. another wasted point- see #1).

In my locker room in HS there was a banner. "To try is to risk failure, not to try is to guarantee it".

[luziannagirl]

Using your technique, most "liberals" are all pro-life, pro-business, and pro-religion, they just don't define it quite the same way you do. Semantics.

Libertarians don't support the public sector at all---they think everything should be privately owned. So, no, they wouldn't be for any economic stimulus bill.

[evaesthetic]

In my experience, most Liberatarians are childish, selfish people who think they are better than other people and would consequently do better in society if everyone could do anything they pleased and no one was responsible for anything. I say, there are certain war-torn, impoverished parts of the world that offer "Liberatarian" living conditions, there is nothing stopping these people from moving there. Except they realize that life would SUCK for them if they did.

[bouyant]

So explain Lionsden WHY you did not support the ERA. Did you fall for the "You'll have to go to the bathroom with men!" fallacy? Or were you desiring to "retain your femininity" in the eyes of males around you by not trying to usurp their right place pf power? Tell us, please.

Libertarianism is the enshrining of the mindset of of a healthy wealthy adolescent white male in a capitalist democracy. They are so taken with their new sense of power arising from their near-constant erections that they come to believe they have created their powerful selves without help from anyone, and everyone else ought do the same.

[Freesia2]

It really is a schitzo mindset they have. "Government is bad. So I think we should work in government. Our job will be to do nothing but announce that government is bad. (While we line our own pockets and help our friends.)"

And would that they had ever considered the American people friends. I was drawn to the part of your article Mr. Gerard where you said that if this works, the most terrifying thing is that people might have good thoughts about government. And the knee knocking fear of what that could lead to.

I can almost hear one of these old Gop fossils dandling a granchild on their knee and saying "Why there might be recovery. And that could lead to good times. People might eat well, and have a roof over their head and a doctor when they're sick and a clean countryside. And then there would be no end to the debauchery. Women might paint their faces and show their ankles and young folks might sass their elders and get college educations and read BOOKS and everythin'. Heaven help us all."

[NorCalNative]

Mr. Gerard I appreciate you comments on this topic. You make a very important point by pointing out how Republicans would like to "drown" government.

The "Elephant-­In-The-Roo­m" question then becomes this: How exactly does a country practice it's unique form of Constitutional Democracy when one of the two major political parties HATES government?

Republicans have a right to their own agenda as they see fit. However, when their fundamental views lean towards Monarchy or a benevolent Dictator and not towards a representative Republic then it's difficult to include them as serious players. It's obvious to anyone paying attention that their sole purpose is to protect wealth, and especially the wealth of corporations.

One sure way to tell what someone is for, even if they are shy about acknowledgement, is to look at their enemies and what they stand for. For example, one of the things I took from Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" was that the ENEMY OF FREE MARKETS IS UNIONS!

The main differences I see between LEFT and RIGHT is the Left prefers a Constitutional President, whereas the Right doesn't care if we have a Monarch, a Despot, a Tyrant, a King, a Dictator or whatever, as long as free markets and free trading are given dominant political and social status.

[NL207]

"the Left prefers a Constitutional President"

Then the left should prefer not to have Obama, as he is at the very least, a dual citizen of Indoesia and the United States, and depending on how one interprets Indonesian adoption law, may very well not even be a citizen of the United States without applying as an adult for re-instatement of US Citizenship after his parents' juvenile renunciation of it. on his behalf. Obama does not necessarliy meet theConstitutional requiremenst to be President.

The Left continually seeks to expand the scope and power of the national government. proof: Compare every program in the Stimulus bill with the Constitutionally enumerated powers of Congress. Wherever you find an absence of Constitutional grant, apply the 10th Amendment. The left does not support Limited government. The only other kind of government that exists is Unlimited government. That is precisely what a dictatorship is and this is precisely the form of government the left is incrementally creating with each new power it assigns to the government.

[flexo]

Oh boy, here we go. Let's look at this point-by-point. First of all, Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship. So therefore, when Obama lived in Indonesia he would have had to revoke his US citizenship in order to become an Indonesian citizen. As he was a child at the time, he could not legally revoke his US citizenship. Therefore, it is impossible for him to ever have been an Indonesian national. Next up, the adoption question. There is zero documentation or evidence that he was ever legally adopted. When you find some, get back to me.

[rmajh5]

Use the phrase “big government” and many people immediately go berserk. My response? I believe we can remain a capitalist democratic society and still have our government, every so often, deeply involved in projects throughout our country that only government can adequately employ.

When America responded to the war started by Germany and Japan with our involvement in World War Two, suddenly our national resources were almost all pointed in one direction. Yet, when the war was over and our victory was in hand, our government retreated to its smaller venue and America was as free as it has always been.

We can do the same when it comes to our current economic crisis. Will the current plan work as President Obama hopes it will? Do we really need more or do we really need less when it comes to our so-called stimulus package? Stay tuned and be at least a little hopeful, for a little while, that Obama's plan will begin to get us back on to a better economic road.

[Pupadup4oBama]

if both sides could learn that the middle is where it's at, we'd all be much happier.
As goldilocks learned - not too much, not too little.

[ObamacratInCA]

"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works—whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end."

Barack H. Obama, Jan. 20 2008, Inaugural address.

If it takes $787 billion to do the trick or $1 trillion, whether it's Keynesian economics or tax cuts the test of success is, does it work?

[Benjamin Tripp]

I think this is a false way of thinking -- if you're on fire, do you put out half the flames? Do you remove half of a cancer? Sometimes the 'center' is a canard: half-measures are no better than nothing. We poured a trillion bucks into war lately. That was no half-measure. So why dabble when it comes to a domestic crisis?

[evaesthetic]

The problem, as I see it, is that Dems have bent over backwards to "compromise" and head for the "middle", while Repubs stubbornly plant their feet and proclaim that THEY don't have to compromise­....We are a center-right country and they are right where they should be. Compromise has to be good faith on both sides, and this is clearly not happening.