The Party of “No”

BI-PARTISAN???
It’s just as obvious that republicans in congress also have no interest in helping working Americans.

First they pretend that they are going to go to Obama with their concerns and ideas for the stimulus bill in a bipartisan effort.

Then they come out of the meeting praising the popular president but only to blame the congress democrats for being partisan and not cooperating.

Then we find out that even before the “productive” meeting with Obama, they all planned on not voting for the bill anyway, regardless of what Obama does for them.

Regardless of republican partisan hardball, Obama still reached across party lines and made adjustments that were suggested by republicans in congress. Only for house republicans to all vote against it.

Adjustments

The adjustments made by Obama to please republicans included a corporate tax cut for the wealthy which is already in place in the current tax policy at a 35% limit. Not to mention that the U.S has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world already considering the vast amount of wealth this country has, and not to mention that most of these people keep their money in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes altogether. They also demanded certain public works programs for infrastructure spending be taken out, including repairing and updating the electrical grid. They also got some pork out of the bill to their credit, but that is the normal part of the process and they failed to mention all their own pork in the bill.

Corporate Tax Limit

That corporate tax cut takes tax cuts away from the middleclass and less spending on infrastructure. This not only hurts the middleclass, it hurts the bill. The republicans are trying to sabatoge the bill in order to make it fail. What good is a corporate tax cut that just allows corps to miser more of their money if the middleclass doesn’t have money to spend on the corps products or services? We have seen how trickledown works. The only wealth that trickles down is the bonuses and salary raises for the higher ups in the corps. It doesn’t create jobs for us. How could it if there is no demand by the consumer base. The republicans must know this (unless they really are that stupid) and that is why they want it in there so they can foul up the bill. They are also representing their constituents: Rich folks and middleclass dupes that vote to screw themselves over. It is time for rich folks to step up and help out. They benefited from Bush’s policies for 7 years. When more money goes into the hands of the few, the less money there is for the many. They have to print money because the middleclass is in debt while the top 10% have 90% of the wealth. I think they can afford to pay more tax. After all they benefit from this great society and that is the price one must pay to live in AMERICA!

Hardball

This is pure political hardball and the republican agenda is about causing this bill to fail so they can win re-election in 2010 and blame the dems for everything.

Obama is also playing hardball. He not only wants a bipartisan bill because he promised to reach across lines but he knows if the bill fails the republicans have less of a reason to blame the democrats. He also needs a few republicans.

Obama gave them what they wanted and they still voted against it. So I say reverse those request by the republicans so the bill is less likely to fail. The republicans are going to blame democrats anyway so why not do it their way? This won’t happen of course because Obama needs republican support in the senate.

The house republicans must know that the original bill is more than likely to work but they also know that it will take longer than two years so the are banking on that it wont have worked by then so they can win re-election based on their no vote for the bill. If it does work by then they are hoping that it is more than likely that people will forget their vote because after all the bill must go through the senate still so their votes are viewed as insignificant.

However, if the bill is a success and no republicans voted for it then it will destroy their economic credibility for good. This is why you will see a few moderate senate republicans vote yes.

The Current Bill

Infrastructure: (54%) $486 billion
Tax Cuts: (46%) $414 billion
Total: $900 billion

Bush passed a bailout bill that has not helped us and he provided little oversight so now we are seeing CEO’s getting huge bonuses. This will not happen in the stimulus bill.

Rush Limbaugh said that he hoped Obama would fail. When questioned, he defended his position by saying that he supports the president and the country but that he hopes liberalism fails. However, I wonder if he really does care about the country more than his career because if he really cared about the economy he would want liberalism to work if that is the ultimate policy of Obama. He should also want anything to work. If Limbaugh knew that liberalism was indeed the way to fix things I wonder if he would support it then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTtlA43IHDc&feature=channel_page

Limbaugh: “Obama sounds like Reagan when he said it’s the people that get the economy going and it’s the people that make the country work, but then he said twenty days ago that government is the only entity, and that’s hypocrisy.”

I don’t see the hypocrisy when in fact it is the role of the government (technically) to give tax cuts to the middleclass, along with infrastructure or state aid, to get the economy moving again. So Obama did not contradict himself. If Limbaugh thinks the middlesclass drives the economy then why does his plan only cut corporate taxes in half? How does that help the middleclass spend money?

He also said that bipartisanship by definition is a joke because it means republicans caving in to what dems want, but hasn’t the democratic congress been lock step with the policies of Bush in the name of bipartisanship for the last three years? In fact, this is exactly why congress has a low approval rating.

So in conclusion, Obama and the republicans both want tax cuts to get the economy rolling again. The difference is that Obama and the dems want to give those tax cuts to the middleclass and the republicans want to give tax cuts to the rich again. Isn’t that the policy that is in place already? How has that worked for you? The so-called conservative policy of the NEOCONS in Washington haven’t worked. Because of this lack of true conservatism, Keynesiasm is the only answer now that Bush has already bailed out the banks to make way for a controlled economic collapse.