President Obama: Dancing with the Democrats, Fencing with the Republicans

At long last, the Economic Recovery Bill, was passed by the Senate, by a margin of one vote, 61 to 37. The bill will now head to Conference between the House of Representatives and the Senate. It will naturally be a mix of Democrats and Republicans, on both sides. There is a difference of about ninety billion dollars, between the House and Senate versions of the bill. The total bill stands at eight hundred and thirty eight-billion dollars, give or take the ninety billion portion. The bill includes funds for education, extension of unemployment benefits, state money to save essential jobs, infrastructure and construction, green jobs creation, tax cuts for working class people, some social security recipient assistance and a few other things thought to be stimulative to the economy.

President Obama, allowed, which in hindsight, seemed to be a mistake, the House of Representatives to virtually write the bill entirely, without close oversight. Democratic Representative Obie, headed up the construction of bill and its contents. The Democrats, not being in power after such a long period of time filled the bill with things which were then picked apart by the Republicans with glee, such as contraceptives, and sodding of the mall in Washington, D. C. They made a big deal out of petty things. But the Democrats handed the Republicans the ammunition, and they started shooting. The public after not being so happy with the way the first part of the seven-hundred and fifty billion dollar, bank bailout money was spent without any disclosure, got very weary of the whole thing. This made the job of steering the bill through the House and Senate, by President Obama, difficult.

So after the Democrats put the President in an embarrassing position, he had to request that they remove some of the things that were controversial out of the bill. The Republicans would not let up, there were not enough tax cuts, this bill was not a stimulus bill, it was a spending bill. This caused the President to ask, “what is a stimulus, if not spending?” The President invited the Republicans to the White House to discuss the measure, before the Republicans arrived at the meeting, there was a decision made by the Republican leadership and reportedly passed down to the members, that they should not vote for the package written up in the House. Therefore the bill was passed by the House without one single Republican vote, quite amazing. Over to the Senate the bill went, with floor debate and more Republican grumbling. Not enough this and too much of that, while the January jobs report came out, showing almost six-hundred thousand jobs were lost in that month alone. On a daily basis, companies were shedding thousands of jobs as the economy slows down to a crawl.

Only three Republican Senators joined the Democrats in voting for the passage of the bill in the Senate, Senators Specter, Snowe, and Collins. Senator Ted Kennedy provided the final one vote, taking the bill forward to committee for revisions.

President Obama has started to go out to the people who are hurting, in Elkhart, Indiana, where the unemployment rate went from 4% to 15%, to Fort Meyers, Florida, where foreclosures are some of the highest in the country. There was one woman in the audience at the town hall meeting, in Florida, who stood up for a question to the President and said she had an emergency situation, unemployment and no housing, she and her family were living in their car, driving and sleeping in various parks. She needed help in the worse way. The President told her to talk to his staff, but there were many people in the country just like her and her family. These were the faces of those who are in dire situations with no help in sight and the Republicans have decided collectively to oppose the President and his plan to revive the economy. There is the feeling that the Republicans will never be satisfied, it reminds one of the time that President Bill Clinton felt he needed to raise taxes on the wealthiest individuals to jump start the economy when he became President. The final Democrat came forth and signed on to the bill he was proposing, to get it to pass, and the woman said at the time that she would not keep her job in her district, if she did vote for the bill, and she was right, she was voted out of office. Not one Republican voted for that bill either, the passage of the bill did what was needed, stimulated the economy and created multiple jobs, giving the country one of the best economies in recent times. The Republicans declared they were responsible for the recovery, delusions come easy.

So here we are again, Rome is burning, and the Republicans and some Democrats are playing their fiddles. The longer it takes to get money into the hands of working people and small businesses, start to create new jobs, revive old jobs, and get credit flowing again the deeper and worse this recession will be and the longer it will take to recover. It might be a good thing to write or call your Congressman and/or your Senator and ask them to think about the country and the situation we are in, and not about their ideological differences for once, this is too big a problem to fiddle faddle and there is not a lot of time to waste. The cliff is just up ahead and it is very steep and very deep, and it will be very far to fall.