Obama Stimulus Plan Worse than Doing Nothing

if the did not waste time crying like babies...they could do what they were sent to Washington to do...

amendments to remove the less than 1% of what they object to...this is how they will be remembered

why not write an amendment to remove what they don't like in the bill?

isn't that a novel idea?

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - call it what it is...

the GOP are not doing what they are hired to do

crying about it only makes them look bad

they are not paid to cry

Missouri - open seat (start fielding now)

Florida - open seat (start fielding now)

Ohio - open seat (start fielding now)

Kentucky - Bunning (thumbs down)

Pennsylvania - Spector (i like the guy)

Kansas - open seat (start fielding now)

North Carolina - Burr (thumbs down)


they are paid to write amendments to make it better

man!

somebody out there has got to youtube this ...i need it for the next campaign...

Tomorrow's job report is likely to be awful. January's job losses could easily top half a million. We're deep into the most vicious of economic cycles: Consumers are slashing their spending because they're perilously in debt and worried about keeping their jobs. But as a result, businesses are facing shrinking sales of goods and services, so they're slashing payrolls, which of course makes consumers even more anxious and further reduces their spending power. Meanwhile, businesses are cutting way back on new investments in equipment, which hurts upstream suppliers, who are now slashing their payrolls. And so it goes, downward. The gap between what the economy could produce if it were running near full capacity and what it's now producing continues to widen. The shortfall is projected to be over a trillion dollars this year.

How do we get out of this downward plunge?

Regardless of your ideological stripe, you've got to see that when consumers and businesses stop spending and investing, there's only entity left to step into the breach. It's government. Major increases in government spending are necessary, and the spending must be on a very large scale. In the last several weeks the President has put forward the outlines of a stimulus plan, and has left it to the House and Senate to fill in the details. A tiny portion of the details that made it into the House version should be stripped away because they seem like old-fashioned pork. But most spending in the bill is absolutely appropriate. My worry is there's not nearly enough of spending to fill the shortfall in overall demand.

Yet at this very moment, Senate Republicans are seeking to strip the President's stimulus package of many of its spending provisions and substitute tax cuts. Part of this is pure pander: They know tax cuts are more popular with the public than government spending, even though spending is a far more effective way to stimulate the economy (more on this in a moment). Another part is pure partisan politics: Republicans are emboldened by Obama's willingness to court Republicans (taking three Republicans into his cabinet, bringing Republican leaders into the White House for consultations, putting all those business tax cuts into the stimulus bill in order to gain Republican favor) without getting anything at all back from the GOP. House Republicans snubbed the bill entirely. So, Senate Republicans say to themselves, what's to lose?

Plenty. Millions more jobs and a full-fledged Depression, for example.

Can we get real for a moment? Take a look at this chart, which comes from calculations by Mark Zandy and his colleagues at economy.com. You see that each dollar of spending has much more impact than each dollar of tax cut.
There are three reasons for this. First, most people who receive a tax cut don't spend all of it. They use part of it to pay down their debts or they save it. Most of us did one or the other last spring with that tax rebate. From the standpoint of any particular individual, paying down debts or saving may be smart behavior -- even commendable. But what's intelligent for an individual does not necessarily translate into what's good for the economy as a whole. The only way to get businesses to create or preserve jobs is through additional spending. And unlike tax cuts used to pay down personal debt or add to savings, every dollar of government spending flows directly into the economy and adds to overall demand.

Second, even that portion of a tax cut we might actually spend doesn't necessarily go into the American economy. It goes all over the world. I have nothing against creating or preserving the jobs of Asians who assemble those flat-panel TVs you see at the mall, for example, but right now we're trying to create or preserve jobs here in America. Sure, the retail workers at the mall who sell the flat-panel TV's might benefit, but remember we're talking about how to get the biggest bang for every dollar. When government spends to repair a highway or build a school or help pay for medical services, the money and the jobs stay here in America.

Finally, those who say cutting taxes on businesses is the best way to create or preserve jobs forget about the demand side. Even with a tax cut, businesses won't hire workers unless there are customers to buy what those workers produce. A government stimulus that creates jobs is a necessary precondition.

This isn't a matter of more or less government, however much Republicans and conservatives would like to wedge it in that old ideological box. The issue is how to revive the economy. When consumers and businesses can't or won't spend enough to keep the economy going, government has to be the spender of last resort. Period.

oh...he did offer an amendment...i would be worried about the snarky language from the vitriolic servant of the People

?????

OMG....what a Republican view....worse than doing nothing....doing nothing is only better than giving more tax cuts to the rich expecting the benefit to trickle down to the hard working middle class!

President Obama is much nicer than I am...by now I would tell the Republicans to kiss my hind end and I would take out all the junk that was put in trying to bring the Republicans into the vote!

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

i find their behavior unimaginable...

they rather cry like babies and play a spin war instead of contributing

i hope they know that America is watching

well...they would rather have the tax cuts over doing nothing ...then they could please the Oil & Coal Lobby

i would imagine the Banking Lobby are funding them with our money as well...they should be ashamed

if i must watch for 24 hours...i will be here...

youtube folks...save it all

i'm just clownin' around
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvoqAImQgU8

until 2010...this is 2009
;-)

define


pork


giving money to the arts, not pork...there are jobs in the arts too, lets not forget, and for the past 8yrs. the arts have taken it on the chin...

condoms, not pork, no babies, no welfare being paid out, money saved...

one person's pork is another stimulus...

lets remember not even 10% is "pork"...I doubt very seriously that a bill leaves congress sans pork...don't think that has ever happened...

The Republicans had their chance with the tax cuts, and we can see where that got us....they are no longer in power, so they need to realize its OUR way now...

sit down, shut up and suck it up, like VoR says...learn to suffer in silence.....

LOL

i love that video

dedicated to the RNC...LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK-QIDzTdso&feature=related

"i've got to learn them fella's the fine art of suffering in silence"

*sniff* *sniff*

*Knock*
*Knock*
*Knock*
(tapping the screen)

did you help with the campaign?

(please get involved again)

invite the people you worked with on the campaign to watch the video message and learn more about this new organization you helped build

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRl8Hd2lyOA

Organizing for America (OFA), the new group that will work alongside the President to support the agenda we fought so hard for.

David Plouffe recorded a video message with Mitch Stewart, the director of the new group, to explain how we can help make change a reality.

Take a minute to watch the video and get involved in Organizing for America:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/neworganization

Our participation in the political process is more important right now than ever.

has anyone noticed that the Big ZERO is starting to get real mad, really mad.

he wants his spending package passed and he wants it passed now.

he thinks because so many of you voted for him, that, that somehow gives him absolute power,

and it doesn't

HMMMM sounds like G W Bush

after all his free passes, he doesn't understand the election is over, welcome to the real world.

he works for the people, and he seems to have lost track of that fact, if he actually ever knew it.

so many of you were willing to choose the most unqualified person to do this job, with no regards for anything other than he made promises of Hope and Change.

with his promise of no lobbyist/ethic reform, he has hired some 13 or 14 so far. what changed. oh yes his mind

with his promise of no earmarks we are being presented with the biggest spending package that contains 99 % earmarks. again what changed oh yes his mind.

with each new nominee comes the revelation that low and behold, they have tax problems. that suddenly get paid, some even after 16 years like, it is no big deal. when it really is.

if he gets this mad this early in the game, can you imagine what he will be like, say after a month on the job.

Mullah Pete Session...LOL

Our economy hangs in the balance ... i hope they get it done tomorrow