Liberal And Progressive Concerns.

Many of the talking head crowd are convinced and are trying to convince everyone else that those Dirty Fucking Hippies running both houses of Congress are just out to promote "welfare spending" and the own "pet projects" in the new economic stimulus and reinvestment bill. The Villagers are now clamoring for President Obama to admonish his Democratic colleagues and take the "librul" packages out of te bill. And in the meantime they try to portray the liberal and progressive rank and file as being upset over losing out on our "socialist agenda". But today in his column in his Washington Post article E. J. Dionne pushes back on all of this nonsense and pulls the veil back on what is really going on here, namely the Republicans are simply using this meme of "bipartisanship" to try to remove elements of the stimulus bill that President Obama actually campaigned on. But the end of piece to me really is the most important part because he goes through and illuminates the true concerns of the base of the Democratic party that actually voted for change on Nov 4th of last year.

The real test is whether Obama will fight for a stimulus bill that achieves some of his larger objectives. The aspects of the House bill that Republicans and conservative commentators have so eviscerated are the very ones that take substantial steps toward the president's own priorities.

Obama placed a heavy bet during his campaign on a promise to reform the heath-care system. To the great consternation of conservatives, the House stimulus bill takes big steps toward broadening the number of Americans government would help to obtain health insurance. Will those provisions be protected in the final bill?

The president has spoken passionately about the inadequacy of our schools and the increasing difficulty that young Americans are having paying for higher education. The House stimulus bill includes a lot of education money. Will students be thrown overboard in pursuit of a nebulous cross-party comity?

Those are exactly the questions you will see being asked all around the liberal/progressive blogosphere. We don't have a problem with President Obama extending his hand in the spirit of bipartisanship but at what cost? If the end result of this round of bipartisanship is a watered down bill that doesn't stimulate the economy and doesn't help people who are losing their jobs and their houses everyday then what will he really have to show for it? Any effort to stimulate the economy will have to also backstop the people are getting hit the hardest right now. Otherwise no matter how many tax cuts you include or spending for infrastructure you will continue to have the foreclosure crisis which is the nexus of the problems in the economy and you will still have a downturn in consumer spending which is one of the major factor driving the job losses.

If this bill doesn't work it won't matter how many Republicans voted for it. The failure will be laid at the feet of the Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid and probably most of all at the feet of President Obama. What we need right now as President Obama has said many times is a focus on doing what works. And if the Republicans are going to refuse to vote for a bill that works its time to drop the bipartisanship act and tell them to fuck off. I would rather have a partisan bill that gets the economy going and helps regular people than a bipartisan bill that is an EPIC FAIL and helps to sweep the Rethugs back into office.

Yeah, What Atrios Said

"Democrats have the presidency and big majorities. Instead of hiding behind the spread-the-blame-around tactic, they should announce their vision and run with it."

Scoreboard Bitches!

For those who thought President Obama was going to get punked in his effort to be bipartisan....

The top congressional leaders from both parties gathered at the White House for a working discussion over the shape and size of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan. The meeting was designed to promote bipartisanship.

But Obama showed that in an ideological debate, he’s not averse to using a jab.

Challenged by one Republican senator over the contents of the package, the new president, according to participants, replied: “I won.”

The statement was prompted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona , who challenged the president and the Democratic leaders over the balance between the package’s spending and tax cuts, bringing up the traditional Republican notion that a tax credit for people who do not earn enough to pay income taxes is not a tax cut but a government check.

Obama noted that such workers pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, property taxes and sales taxes. The issue was widely debated during the presidential campaign, when Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, challenged Obama’s tax plan as “welfare.”

With those two words — “I won” — the Democratic president let the Republicans know that debate has been put to rest Nov. 4 .

(h/t Benen)

I Guess Maybe They WEREN'T Paying Attention

Last night after watching some good NFL football I started to peruse some of the better liberal websites. All was quiet for awhile but then later on in the evening I started seeing several posts pop up discussing reports that President Elect Barack Obama was going to include something like $300 billion dollars in tax cuts in his economic stimulus plan. What weirded me out was that most if not all of the posts were diatribes against Barack Obama for cutting taxes. One jerk off even used the term "douchebag" to describe him.

Now the reason I was weirded out was because I could have sworn Obama had been talking about giving middle class tax cuts for the last year or so. Hell wasn't that what the whole "socialist" meme was all about? So I decided I needed to read these reports and see what the fuss was all about. I saw where this move was being sold as a way for Obama to gain bipartisan support for the bill because the Republicans would like the tax cuts. For about half a second I understood why people were getting pissed off but then I thought on it a little more.

First of all Obama DID promise middle class tax cuts damn near from jump street so they shouldn't have been a surprise. Second of all it came off to me like Republicans were framing the story this way because it plays into the meme that Democrats NEVER want to cut taxes and would only do so to appease the "fiscally conservative" Republicans. And last but not least the Wing Nut Wall Street Journal story about it all of a sudden low balled the overall cost of the stimulus plan to below $800 billion. But just a few weeks ago when they were slamming the idea of spending on infrastructure as economic stimulus didn't they estimated the plan at $1 trillion dollars or more? Thats a huge difference because the new story would have you believe that tax cuts would make up almost half of the stimulus plan. But their earlier assesments would have it more around 30%. After thinking it through I smelled a rat. For that reason I was highly anticipating today's press availablity by Obama just to see what he had to say about it. Lets check him out.

You can fast forward to 5:38

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Yeah, what HE said!

Now I have just about had enough of this hand wringing, hair on fire mentality of so many people on the left now. Its almost like the Republicans won't even have any work to do for the next four years because the liberals and progressives will handle all the attacking of President Elect Obama. Its almost like we all have PTSD from the Bush years and now we are so used to pushing back on any and everything that we don't recognize friend from foe. I have said it once I will say it again, can we PLEASE wait for the man to get in frikkin office and actually DO something before we start tearing him down? Thanks in advance.