How Should Progressives Be Talking About The Stimulus Package?

Two Democrats with very different agendas

Every single day Vermont's Independent Senator Bernie Sanders wakes up, goes to the office and fights for America's working families. Most of his colleagues spend their time working for interests of their campaign contributors in Big Business. The latter is a disaster for Americans any way you slice it. Taken to extremes it leaves us with crooked politicians-- and Randy Duke Cunningham was just the stupid-enough-to-get-caught tip of the iceberg-- willing to take overt bribes and campaign contributions (covert bribes) in return for billions of dollars annually in special interest legislation. And entire industry-- for-profit lobbying-- generating billions of dollars annually has grown up around trading thousands of dollars in "contributions" in return for millions of dollars in earmarks and special interest fiscal legislation. The most corrupt members of Congress, in both houses and on both sides of the aisle, are the ones fighting the hardest against Obama's agenda. Listen to Bernie talk about what this Stimulus bill is really all about:



Alas, not all Democrats are as smart as Bernie or as dedicated to giving a hand to American working families. Earlier we looked at reactionary North Carolina Blue Dog Heath Shuler, who had crossed the aisle to vote with the Republican obstructionists against President Obama, lambasting Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for sticking up for working people. (Remember, after Rahm Emanuel had selected the failed football player to run against a Republican bankster, Charlie Taylor, he started his campaign by threatening to not vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker.) Anyway, Shuler, a virulent racist and corporate shill, may be the worst "Democrat" in Congress but he certainly isn't the only bad one.

One of the 3 freshmen who has continually crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans is Idaho reactionary Walt Minnick, a near certain one-termer who seems determined to be remembered as a complete and reviled failure. The far right will support Bill Sali, the ex-congressman Minnick defeated, who is running against him next year, but right now they're celebrating Minnick as the useful idiot he is. Minnick is the polar opposite of Bernie Sanders, a dream Democrat for corporate America. He's trying to be the Joe Lieberman of the House-- who new polls show would be swamped in a landslide if he had to face Connecticut voters today-- by playing footsie with the Republicans and betraying the values and ideals of his own party. His idea of a stimulus bill is $170 billion, something that economists are laughing at as completely ineffectual and even ridiculous.

One of Minnick's freshman colleagues in the House, former naval officer and working families champion, Eric Massa, has a very different perspective on the president's rescue efforts than Minnick does. Massa:

Now is the time for action in the tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We're looking at a 2-year plan to head off the realities of our current struggling economy. Even though I don't like deficit spending, I don't think now is the time to ask how little we can do at the federal level. This is a national emergency.

The goal of the Stimulus Package is to stop the downward economic spiral so we'll see the normal rejuvenation of the economy. The reality is that doing nothing because we may only get 92% of what we want is no longer an option. There is no perfect solution. If there was it would have been done already. There is a series of challenges to be met and while I don't like deficit spending, we are not in normal times right now. There is a significant sense of urgency. After this is all over, hopefully we'll see a return of an economy that is investing in America instead of sending our jobs overseas.

I have come down on the side of building things. These are things like schools, bridges and roads. The opponents of this bill have incorrectly gotten people to believe that this is massive government misspending. The truth is that 95% of working families will see an automatic tax cut, 3-4 million jobs will be created or protected and unlike the bank bailout, there will be transparency and accountability in this package.
 
As I stated before, now is the time for action so we can put the American people back to work and start strengthening our economy.

Members of Congress like Bernie Sanders in the Senate and Eric Massa in the House, are dedicated to working with the president to extricate the country from the hole that's been dug over the past decade by the right-wing agenda and dogmatic, unworkable policies that have benefited the wealthy at the expense of everyone else and at the expense of society and the nation. It's a shame that a small handful of members of the Democratic Party, like Heath Shuler and Walt Minnick, have decided their own political careers in red states come before what's best for America.


UPDATE: CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS NAMED

House Democrats picked Waxman and Obey, both of whom are well-suited for the job, and Rangel, who is so mired in scandal that he compromises the integrity of whatever comes out. Very lame. The Republicans, though, have actually managed to pick someone even more mired in scandal, Jerry Lewis, the most corrupt member of the U.S. Congress. Curiously they also picked Michigan congressman Dave Camp, interesting because there will be a huge push by Michigan's delegation to put back the Buy American rules that were removed by the GOP in the Senate. On the Senate side the Democrats named 2 moderates, Inouye and Reid, and a reactionary, Baucus who is certainly capable of voting with the Republicans, as he frequently does. The Senate Repugs named two obstructionists, Thad Cochran and Chuck Grassley. Interesting that McConnell didn't name himself or any of the Obstructionist Caucus leaders like DeMint, Vitter or Burr.

One thing I love about the Senate version is that, according to the NY Times, "Financial institutions that received federal bailout money and paid large executive bonuses would be required to compensate taxpayers." Ron Wyden and Olympia Snowe offered that amendment, an excellent use of the concept of bipartisanship.

The $838 billion measure includes an amendment penalizing companies that paid bonuses greater than $100,000 to executives after receiving government rescue funds last year. The amendment would require the companies to repay within four months any portion of the bonus above $100,000 or face an excise tax of 35 percent on the portion of the bonus above $100,000.

Now let's see if Baucus, Cochran, Lewis, Camp and Grassley kill it in conference.