Get Ready For The Ben Nelson-Susan Collins Great Depression

The only thing standing between us and utter doom

If you follow DWT really closely, you know that my pal Roland has been in the midst of buying a house for the last several months. The deal was just about set when the squirrely seller today refused to pay for the termite treatment, which-- at least in California-- is standard. The seller is an attorney and has been acting in bad faith every step of the way. So today-- buoyed by a winning battle I had just had with CitiBank over some outrageous credit card charges (now 100% removed)-- I suggested she find another buyer. Termite inspection was promptly agreed to. The sky is falling on support for the Stimulus meme that has been trumpeted by the media for the last few days is way overblown. President Obama doesn't need Republican votes-- and I doubt he'll get many-- to pass the Stimulus Bill. What he does need is to save America from a decade of disastrous Republican economic and fiscal mismanagement which has led our country to the precipice of ruin. That's why we elected him-- not to make nice with the authors of our misery.

Speaker Pelosi is feeling her progressive oats lately and maybe Emanuel's departure from the House leadership has encouraged her to ignore the turgid old Blue Dog talking points Steny Hoyer can't help but make every time he opens his yap. She's not on board with the Republican and Blue Dog efforts to slash up the Stimulus Bill to the point where it will be ineffective and won't work, the GOP goal.

In a statement sure to rile Republicans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Friday dismissed calls for bipartisanship as “process” arguments extraneous to passing a stimulus bill — and warned Senate Democrats against slashing proposed increases to education spending.

...At the same time, she urged the need for speed in passing the package-- and stopped short of saying that she’d insist on her demands during upcoming conference negotiations with the Senate.

“Washington seems consumed in the process argument of bipartisanship, when the rest of the country says they need this bill,” the California Democrat said, seeming to sweep aside the Obama administration initial desire to have broad GOP support for the plan.

“We must have a bill [quickly],” she said, in a clear message to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who has spent the past two days wrangling with moderates who want to cut proposed education funding for the states by as much as $50 billion.

“These cuts are very damaging-- [the House bill] was put together very carefully. ... The funding goes directly to school districts, they are stimulative because they maintain jobs instead of cutting jobs.”

Meanwhile, led by imbeciles Ben Nelson and Susan Collins, the worst compromisers-- who are, after all, compromising the future security of all of us-- have reached a pointless, needless and hopeless agreement-- at the expense of working families-- gutting Head Start, Education for the Disadvantaged, School improvement, Child Nutrition, Firefighters, Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard, Prisons, COPS Hiring, Violence Against Women, NASA, NSF, Western Area Power Administration, CDC, Food Stamps and seriously reduced public transit and school construction, while increasing money for military procurements, the least stimulative expenditure any government ever does. Looks like we got us a bad half-assed bill-- 42% tax cuts/58% spending-- that won't do half the job it needs to do. We are so fucked; we completely nominated the wrong person for the presidency. Instead of a fighting Democrat we wound up with a Post-Partisan eunuch, who doesn't have the sense to listen to Paul Krugman instead of the pack of dopes complicit in the catastrophe. "It’s hard," he wrote "to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

And members of Obama's own party-- more than just Nelson-- are lending them a hand, just like they did for all of the last decade.




UPDATE: A CLOSER LOOK AT WHAT THE SENATE SEEMS TO BE TRYING TO CHANGE IN THE HOUSE BILL

According to a post from CongressionalQuarterly just before midnight, the pared-back Stimulus Bill they are prepared to send to the Conference Committee eliminates school construction and some other programs Obama wants included. They claim they needed to make these compromises to attract 3 Republicans to break the filibuster promised to Limbaugh by die-hard Obstructionists DeMint (R-SC), Vitter (R-LA), Coburn (R-OK), Burr (R-NC), and Bunning (R-KY). Susan Collins, Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe are the 3 Republicans but, truth be told, Democrats also had to assuage the most reactionary inside their own caucus, particularly Ben Nelson (NE), who has been bolting across the aisle to support some of the worst Obstructionist amendments and was threatening to vote against the bill.

The tradeoffs needed to get enough votes for the plan in the Senate presaged tough bargaining with the House before a final bill is delivered to President Obama, who, according to one lawmaker, signed off on the Senate deal. Top House Democrats were already complaining about the Senate moves before the agreement was formally announced.

The compromise would cut $108 billion from the original Senate bill, including $83 billion in spending and $25 billion in tax measures.

The single biggest spending cut would come out of a fund meant to help states avoid cuts to their own spending, especially in schools and universities. The compromise trims that funding to $39 billion, a $40
billion reduction, according to a chart distributed by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., one of the authors of the compromise. The House provided $79 billion in the version of the stimulus it approved Jan. 28.

Funding to increase broadband access in rural areas and other underserved areas would be reduced by $2 billion, from $9 billion to $7 billion. That's still more than twice as much as the $3.2 billion in the House bill.

The Senate proposal also trims funding for the Byrne justice grant program, which provides assistance to various law enforcement programs. The compromise cuts $450 million from the Byrne grants, reducing funding from $1.5 billion to $1.05 billion, according to Nelson's chart. The House allocated $3 billion for Byrne grants.

Other changes to the Senate plan would include scrapping a provision that allowed some business tax credits to be carried back for five ears instead of one and accelerating use of low-income housing tax credits, saving $9 billion; scaling back a subsidy under the COBRA program, which provides health insurance for people who lose their jobs, to 50 percent of the premium, down from 65 percent, saving $5 billion; and setting the phase out for a new payroll tax credit at $70,000 for individuals and $140,000 for couples, instead of $87,500 and $175,000, saving $2 billion.

... "It's one of those compromises that, I think, will probably get the bill through," said Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. "All those cuts in education, all the money taken out in prevention in health, no school construction money in here-- that's the deal the Republicans drove. So people ought to know that's why we're not getting that money."

Today's Christian Science Monitor has a decent look at where the Senate has chopped. I say lock this guy in a room with Ben Nelson, Lindsay Graham, Susan Collins, Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh and Miss McConnell for a week. I'll never call the South backward again. Meanwhile Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill (MO) has been twitting. Here's her latest:

"Proud we cut over 100 billion out of recov bill.Many Ds don't like it, but needed to be done.The silly stuff Rs keep talking about is OUT."

This is what I'm talking about when I mention "confused Democrats."