Defining The Battleground And The Nature Of Conservatism

The other day we mentioned how Indiana reactionary Todd Young just wants all these right-wing social issues-- like marriage equality-- to go away so Republicans can concentrate on all their elites have ever cared about: screwing over working families for the benefit of the Big Business interests that finance Republican politicians' careers. Yeah, that simple. That conservatives have been on the wrong side of history on every single important issue facing America starting with the Declaration of Independence-- conservatives, of course, fought on the British side during the Revolutionary War and thousands fled the new country afterward-- right through:

• The Bill of Rights and the forging of a democracy
• Universal white male suffrage
• Public education
• The emancipation of the slaves
• The national park system
• Food safety
• The breakup of monopolies
• Land grant universities
• Rural electrification
• Women’s suffrage
• The abolition of child labor
• The eight hour workday
• The minimum wage
• Social Security
• Civil rights for minorities and women
• Voting rights for minorities and the poor
• Cleaning up our air, our water, and toxic dump sites
• Consumer product safety
• Medicare and Medicaid

They are always wrong. They are an impediment-- by definition and by nature-- to progress. And their asses are always for sale to the special interests in the process. Now Republicans like Young-- Todd if not Don-- want to get all this extraneous stuff about immigration, gays, lady parts, gun massacres. Latinos, etc out of the way so they can make their case about the economy. Democrats should welcome that debate-- all Americans should. It really is the only thing that could ever expose the GOP for what it is: a tool of the selfish, greed-obsessed millionaires and billionaires. Yesterday Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent welcomed it, urging Obama to keep talking about jobs.

With the country mired in extended sequestration, and Congress trapped in a stalemate over how much austerity to impose, it’s good to see that President Obama today plans to renew his push for infrastructure investment to create jobs and get the economy going. The Associated Press reports that Obama will today unveil a plan to create jobs by encouraging more private investment in highways and other infrastructure projects-- and with billions in new federal spending on infrastructure, partly via a national “infrastructure bank” that was originally proposed during Obama’s first term.

It appears Obama will propose new spending in his forthcoming budget, which will call for a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. The White House is likely to argue that deficit reduction measures can co-exist with new spending on infrastructure, research, and early-childhood education, which will be offset by other unspecified budget changes.

Obviously new spending is a nonstarter among Republicans, as the President’s partial emphasis on private infrastructure investment makes clear. But Obama should continue pushing infrastructure spending, anyway. For one thing, it’s highly popular: A recent Gallup poll found that 72 percent of Americans-- and even 53 percent of Republicans-- support new federal spending to put people to work on infrastructure repairs. For another, the notion that we should prioritize spending to get the economy going over deficit reduction in the short term has been entirely marginalized from the Washington conversation, which remains trapped in a dialog between “balanced” austerity (the Dem push for a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes) and extreme austerity (the Paul Ryan budget).

This week, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich was bemoaning the fact that with more Republicans coming around to the majority view on most social issues they're still in the dark on the economy. But that's really all they care about and, as he says, "public opinion seems beside the point."

Before January’s fiscal cliff deal, for example, at least 60 percent of Americans, in poll after poll, expressed strong support for raising taxes on incomes over $250,000. As you recall, though, the deal locked in the Bush tax cut for everyone earning up to $400,000.

Yes, legislative deals require compromise. But why is it that deals over economic policy almost always compromise away what a majority of Americans want?

Most Americans weren’t particularly concerned about the budget deficit to begin with. They’ve been far more concerned about jobs and wages. Yet maneuvers over the deficit have consistently trumped jobs and wages.

Recent polls show Americans would rather reduce the deficit by raising taxes than by cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, education, and transportation. Yet Congress seems incapable of making that kind of deal.

Some 65 percent of Americans want to raise taxes on large corporations-- but both parties are heading in precisely the opposite direction.

Half of Americans favor a plan to break up Wall Street’s twelve megabanks, which currently control 69 percent of the banking industry. Only 23 percent oppose such a plan (27 percent are undecided).

You might this would at least prompt an examination of the possibility on Capitol Hill and the White House-- especially now that the Street is actively eviscerating regulations under Dodd-Frank.

But our elected representatives don’t want to touch Wall Street. According to Politico, even the White House believes too-big-to-fail will soon be a closed chapter.

Why are politicians so sensitive to public opinion on equal marriage rights, immigration, and guns-- and so tone deaf to what most Americans want on the economy?

Perhaps because the former issues don’t threaten big money in America. But any tinkering with taxes or regulations sets off alarm bells in our nation’s finely-appointed dining rooms and board rooms-- alarm bells that, in turn, set off promises of (or threats to withhold) large wads of campaign cash in the next election.

When political scientists Benjamin Page and Larry Bartels surveyed Chicagoans with an average net worth of $14 million, they found their biggest concern was curbing budget deficits and government spending-- ranking these as priorities three times as often as they did unemployment.

And-- no surprise-- these wealthy individuals were also far less willing than are other Americans to curb deficits by raising taxes on high-income people, and more willing to cut Social Security and Medicare. They also opposed initiatives most other Americans favor-- such as increasing spending on schools and raising the minimum wage above the poverty level.

The other thing distinguishing Page’s and Bartels’ wealthy respondents from the rest of America was their political influence.

Two-thirds of them had contributed money (averaging $4,633) in the most recent presidential election. A fifth of them had even “bundled” contributions from others.

That money bought the kind of political access most Americans only dream of. About half of these wealthy people had recently initiated contact with a U.S. senator or representative-- and nearly half (44 percent) of those contacts concerned matters of relatively narrow economic self-interest rather than broader national concerns.

This is just the wealthy of one city-- Chicago. Multiply it across the entire United States and you begin to see the larger picture of whom our representatives are listening to, and why. Nor does the survey include the institutionalized wealth-- and economic clout-- of Wall Street and large corporations. Multiply the multiplier.

Great wealth can also influence public opinion. It is possible, for example, that the piles of money spent by billionaire Pete Peterson to persuade Americans that the budget deficit is the nation’s most urgent economic problem is now paying off. Recent polls show greater concern about the deficit now than was expressed a few years ago when the deficit represented a much larger percentage of the total economy.

Yesterday President Obama made the point in Florida that investing "in infrastructure not only makes our roads, bridges, and ports safer and gives our businesses and workers the tools to compete successfully in the global economy, it also creates thousands of good American jobs that cannot be outsourced." With the GOP gratuitously obstructing every single initiative he takes, he's calling for a partnership with private enterprise to rebuild the country's infrastructure. If businesses see the GOP standing in the way of them making a profit... watch out-- all bets will be off.

A Guest Post From Carol Shea Porter (D-NH)

Carol is an old friend of Blue America and she-- along with Alan Grayson and Mary Jo Kilroy, one or two others-- was one of the few good Democrats who got swept away with all the treacherous Blue Dogs and ConservaDems last November in the teabagger sweep. Millions of disappointed Democrats stayed away from the polls for that one. Now looks what's happened! Luckily for New Hampshire, Carol is back in the race against corporate shill Frank Guinta. Please take a look at this post Carol did on the attempts Democrats made to save the economy in the face of obscene obstructionism by the GOP. If you like what you see and if you'd like to see Carol back in Congress, please consider making a contribution to her grassroots campaign here at our ActBlue page.

Yes, The Stimulus Did Work

by Carol Shea-Porter

In late 2008, the economy was in free fall. The daily headlines were downright frightening. Two were particularly ominous: “In String of Bad News, Omens of a Long Recession” and “Next Year Is Looking Even Worse.” In December, America lost more than 700,000 jobs, and economists worried about a global depression. They were predicting the longest and most severe recession since World War II. The New York Times noted the “demoralizing rat-a-tat of grim reports on jobs, sales and public confidence.” In the wake of that financial crisis, nearly 8 million Americans lost their jobs.

The severity of the economic crisis that President Obama inherited called for strong and prompt action to keep America from slipping into a depression. Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) on February 13, 2009. The goal was to jumpstart the economy by saving and/or creating jobs and by increasing economic growth. There was money to keep state and local governments afloat, money for infrastructure, a tax cut for 95% of American workers, and tax cuts for small businesses. The total cost of the package, called “The Stimulus,” was $787 billion. It’s been almost three years since the bill was passed, and the two political parties are still fighting about it. Recently, the nation heard a Republican presidential candidate dramatically insist that the Stimulus had not created a single job. The question is-- did the Stimulus work?

A study by two economists, Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton professor and former vice chairman of the Fed, and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, who was presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's economic advisor, said that the government's various interventions averted a second Depression. In studying the effects of policy responses to the recession, they argue that without the government's various interventions, our gross domestic product would be 6.5% lower, we would have lost 8.5 million MORE jobs, and would be experiencing deflation instead of low inflation. They conclude that the interventions "reinforced each other," and that "While the effectiveness of any individual element certainly can be debated, there is little doubt that in total, the policy response was highly effective."

What did the stimulus actually do for NH? Who got the money? Why do Republican leaders say it failed even as they show up to celebrate the beginning or the end of successful projects? As mayor, one of our NH Congressmen pushed so hard for money that then-Attorney General Kelly Ayotte accused him of being a “grandstander.” The Stimulus has been used as a club to beat President Obama and Democrats so often that many believe that the money evaporated without helping anyone. That simply is not so.

The money was spent to help communities cope with recession. It helped pay for waste-water treatment facilities and clean water. It kept teachers working, helped Head Start, and kids with special needs. Stimulus money was used to provide meals for seniors in centers or at home. It helped homeless children, crime victims, people with brain injuries and many others. It helped New Hampshire build, repair, and renovate. Money went to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, creating good jobs and bolstering national security. The National Guard received funds, as did the NH Broadband Mapping Program. The Small Business Administration was able to expand small business lending.

Money was used for invention and innovation. The Green Launching Pad, initiated by Governor Lynch and the University of New Hampshire, was funded with stimulus funds. Governor Lynch said:

"The first round of the Green Launching Pad has been a tremendous success, benefiting not only those companies that participated, but working to strengthen our state's economy… I am focused on making sure that we are growing the jobs and companies of the future right here in New Hampshire and the Green Launching Pad is just one way we are doing that. The ideas and the products that have been nurtured by the Green Launching Pad are helping create good jobs..."

This plan wasn’t perfectly executed everywhere. But USA Today got it right on August 30, 2010 with the headline: “Economists agree: Stimulus created nearly 3 million jobs.” They continued, “Eighteen months later, the consensus among economists is that the stimulus worked in staving off a rerun of the 1930’s.”

I voted for that Stimulus because I wanted to do exactly that-- stave off a rerun of the 1930’s. It is time for the political opposition to correct the record and let people know their government did do something good with the people’s money.

Whaddaya know, liberals are back! (We're the PROBLEM, of course, but I guess it's better than being ignored)

Yesterday this seemed like a pretty trenchant cartoon from the great Monte Wolverton. Now it turns out he's got it all wrong, the problem is us liberals -- for not doing a fervent enough selling job on the Obama administration's great accomplishments.

by Ken

As some readers will recall, I tend not so much to read as to osmose (I don't suppose there is such a word, but that's not my fault) stuff like the major newsletters' e-newsletter digests of their current Web content. So this afternoon my eyes like to popped out when I eyeballed washingtonpost.com's "Afternoon Edition" and saw the first two items were . . . well, look for yourself:

Well, no, I didn't actually read either story; I'm not that much of a masochist. (If you'd like to, here's a link to the real page with real links.) I kind of got the idea here, and while it seems clear that in both cases we're being treated as spoiled, crack-brained, troublemaking children, the amazing thing to me is that we normally invisible liberals are being talked about at all in such hotbeds of political "respectabity" as WaPo's PostPolitics. We're back, baby!

And not as preemptively euphemized "progressives" either. (Though it may be that the political geeks at the Post share that odd notion that slipped out the other day in an otherwise quite sensible column of Gene Robinson's, where it turned out that "progressives" = "Democrats.") No, suddenly PostPolitics has liberals on its mind.

AND IT TURNS OUT THAT IT REALLY IS OUR FAULT,
AND THE WHITE HOUSE IS HERE TO TELL US

Really good, important column by our colleague John Arivosis at AmericaBlog, "White House blames lib groups for deficit deal debacle at secret meeting." John begins by quoting from a report by Politico's Ben Smith, usually to be trusted when it comes to enforcing political orthodoxy, "that at last night's "Common Purpose" meeting, a regular (supposed to be secret) get together between the White House and progressive advocacy groups (where the White House routinely yells at them, I hear), the groups got an earful about the President's new deficit deal."

Progressive consultant Mike Lux, the sources said, summed up the liberal concern, producing what a participant described as an "extremely defensive" response from Sperling.

Sperling, a person involved said, pointed his finger backed at liberal groups, which he said hadn't done enough to highlight what he saw as the positive side of the debt package -- a message that didn't go over well with participants.

Which, John says, "sounds oddly familiar," since he was on the receiving end of just such an admonishment as part of a group of liberal bloggers granted an audience in February 2010 with then vice presidential economic adviser Jared Bernstein, who berated liberal media for failing to persuade the nation of the wonders of the president's stimulus program.

I remember Bernstein specifically asking the Nation's Chris Hayes whether he and his paper had done enough to help promote the benefits of the stimulus over the proceeding year. Chris said that they had just done a podcast about it that day, but yes he probably could have done more. I recall jumping in and noting that Chris was the last person Berstein should criticize, as he's on Rachel Maddow every night defending the administration quite diligently.

In any case, this isn't a coincidence. They actually believe, inside the White House, that we're to blame for their problems. That they're doing a chipper job and the public would know it, but for the Netroots and the liberal advocacy groups doing such a lousy job selling the President's magnificent handiwork.

Things aren't getting better because the administration doesn't even recognize that they are -- that their boss is -- the problem.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING WHAT THE NO. 3
STORY WAS THIS AFTERNOON IN POSTPOLITICSWORLD . . .


And it suddenly occurred to me, what about Bob? Ever since he was inaugurated as governor of Virginia last year -- as a leading indicator of the political ineptitude of the Obama administration, clueless about the effect offering "GOP lite" candidates would have on the new and liberal-base voters who had put him in the White House the year before -- he's probably been thinking of himself as the Leading Far-Right Crackpot Governor in the Land. And now here he is eclipsed by thugs and sociopaths like Scott Walker, Rick Scott, and John Kasich, with such attention as is paid to Virginia winguttery going to AG "Cuckoo" Cuccinelli, who can effortlessly deliver on the promise that nobody on the planet will be caught saying crazier stuff than him.

#

Annals of "compromise," Wednesday edition: Billionaires rally for the president's tax-cut plan

America's favorite billionaire: Thurston Howell III, whose son, Thurston Howell IV, is a big supporter of the president's plan

by Ken

As I pointed out last night, here once again we turn -- for insight into the news behind the news -- to our daily fix of Andy Borowitz.

BOROWITZ REPORT

DECEMBER 8, 2010

Wealthiest .0000001% Hail Tax Deal

Billionaires Praise Obama Move

GENEVA (The Borowitz Report) - President Obama's deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich drew rave reviews today from the wealthiest .0000001% of Americans, who pronounced the deal "a total home run."



"When we first heard about the deal, we were like, this is too good to be true," said multibillionaire Thurston Howell IV, a spokesman for the richest .0000001%. "But when our butlers read the plan aloud to us during the cocktail hour, we were incredibly stoked."



The 29 plutocrats who make up the nation's wealthiest .0000001% were at their annual meeting at Mr. Howell's villa in Geneva, Switzerland when news of the President's deal was first released.



"Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were the first to hear about it, and then the news just kind of trickled down, if I may use a favorite phrase of ours," Mr. Howell said.



"The President deserves credit for recognizing what the wealthiest .0000001% have known for years," he added. "Our cost of living has soared astronomically, especially when you consider how expensive it's gotten to control the outcome of elections.

"

In response to critics who have said that Mr. Obama's decision to extend the tax cuts represents a change in his position, Mr. Howell said, "If I may coin a phrase, that's change I can believe in."


Meanwhile, Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson points out in his column today, "The paucity of hope - and other victims of Obama's tax-cut deal":

Holding income tax rates at their current level would merely perpetuate the economic status quo. The extension of unemployment insurance is the deal's most effective provision for maintaining the amount of money in circulation - but it does nothing to raise that level. Like most of the provisions that came from the White House, its effect is more humanitarian and anti-contractionary than stimulative. That doesn't make those provisions less necessary - far from it - but neither are they a panacea for the nation's economic ills.

"But," he says, "the price the Republicans extracted in return for staying their assault on common decency was uncommonly steep: Directing public funds to enriching the rich, despite the evidence that this will do nothing for the economy."

He points to some of the noxious stuff in the package, like: the dramatic slashing of the estate tax ("with an assist from outgoing Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who thoughtfully tends to the interests of Sam Walton's heirs") and the array of tax breaks "for capital over labor" while leaving the cap on capital gains at 15 percent --

meaning, income derived from investment will continue to be taxed at a lower level than most income from wages. But money invested in American companies these days is as likely to be spent abroad as in the United States. By 2008, 48 percent of the revenue of the Standard & Poor's leading 500 companies came from abroad - up from 32 percent in 2001, according to Business Week. For many (nominally) American companies, production is even more offshored than sales. If you invest in Apple, you're investing in a company that employs roughly 25,000 people in the United States, even as 250,000 employees of Foxconn, China's leading manufacturer, make Apple's products in Shenzhen province.

At the same time, "proposals that would have created jobs in America seem to have fallen by the wayside in the new tax deal." He points to the Build America Bonds program ("which enabled local governments to construct schools and roads for lower costs") and "Sen. Mark Warner's proposal to swap out the tax cut for the rich in favor of a job-creation tax credit."

Even viewing this deal as the closest thing to a stimulus package that can emerge from a Congress in which Republicans routinely thwart spending on all but the rich, it still falls far short of the 2009 stimulus - which saved millions of jobs but was nonetheless too small to really restart the economy.

The best we can say of the deal is that it largely perpetuates, and only occasionally worsens, the status quo - in particular, the three-decade status quo in which the rich get richer at ordinary Americans' expense. Obama vowed during his news conference Tuesday to take on that status quo over the next two years, but his inability thus far to frame that debate - even though most Americans share his opposition to extending tax cuts for the rich - is maddening.

Stasis you can grieve over. Good grief.

Good grief indeed!

#

Why Are Conservatives Against Helping Youths Get Summer Jobs?

In all the commotion from the back-and-forth over the final passage of the healthcare reform bill by reconciliation (Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor and Ben Nelson voting with the Republicans against working families), couple with Republican terrorism against members of Congress trying to make their constituents' lives better, people may have missed Wednesday night's vote in the House on H.R. 4899, Dave Obey's Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act. The main purpose is to make "emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief and summer jobs for 2010 to: (1) the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), including the DHS Office of the Inspector General for disaster-related audits and investigations; (2) the Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (ETA) for certain training and employment services; and (3) the Small Business Administration (SBA) for the business loans program account."

It wound up passing 239-175, after surviving a Republican attempt to kill it earlier, which went down to defeat 239-176. The votes weren't identical and the differences are telling. In the motion to table the GOP parliamentary maneuver to kill the bill, 3 particularly worthless Blue Dogs sided with the Republicans, Boehner Boys Walt Minnick (ID), Gene Taylor (MS) and Glenn Nye (VA) and Republican lockstep, zombie-like was, as usual, completely cohesive. However, when it came to the final vote, there was some strategizing for future elections and a few positions altered.

Five ambitious Republicans-- all of whom, you'll recall, voted to kill the bill just moments earlier-- decided they wanted to be on the record as having voted for the bill. And in the end 8 Democrats wanted to be on the record as voting against it-- ConservaDems Brian Baird (WA), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (Blue Dog-SD), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT) and regular Democrats Jared Polis (CO), Adam Smith (WA), Gary Peters (MI) and Chris Murphy (CT). The Republicans who voted for summer jobs:

Ahn Cao (R-LA)- Louisiana voters get pretty nervous about votes against emergency disaster aid for some reason

Vern Ehlers (R-MI)- he's retiring anyway, so why be a dick?

Walter Jones (R-NC)- yeah, his district gets hurricanes too

Tim Murphy (R-PA)

Steve Scalise (R-LA)- see Cao

And Bill Cassidy (R-LA) answered "present" too scared to vote for or against. The $600 million for summer employment for young people is considered a waste of money to Republicans because so much of it is spent on minorities who they tend to hate to begin with. They didn't buy into the White House's statement that it will take "another important step forward in the ongoing effort to help put Americans back to work through the expansion of a youth summer jobs program and offers continued support to America’s small businesses, which are the backbone of the American economy.” The full White House statement before the vote:

The Administration supports the inclusion of $600 million for the Workforce Investment Act youth program for summer employment opportunities for disadvantaged youth.

This funding will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and help young people open the door to future opportunities, while enabling them to generate additional income during these difficult economic times.

The Administration has long recognized the importance of putting youth to work as a way of developing the next generation and strengthening the nation’s economy.

The Recovery Act also aimed to create over a hundred thousand summer youth jobs to provide young people with meaningful work experience.

After passage Speaker Pelosi issued the following statement:

The House also passed the Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act. This bill ensures that our communities have the means to prepare for unexpected emergencies and recover from natural disasters. It invests in our most precious resource-- our next generation-- supporting more than 300,000 summer jobs for young people across the country and setting them on a path of personal and professional success. And it makes small business loans more available through an initiative that has already created or saved more than 560,000 jobs for our workers.

We are building on the Recovery Act-- on-track to save or create 3.5 million jobs-- and the health insurance reform President Obama signed into law this week, which promises to create up to 4 million more jobs over the next decade. This Congress will continue our work to restore jobs and build a strong new foundation for America’s economy.

Bill Hedrick is the Blue America-endorsed candidate running for the hard-pressed Inland Empire seat currently occupied by Ken Calvert. Calvert, who yesterday voted against taxing the bonuses bankers received from TARP, also voted against helping to fund summer job programs. I asked Bill for his take on the legislation. "Our problems are pretty straight-forward in California," he began, logically enough. We need jobs, and we need to strengthen small business, the real economic engine in our communities. "The Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act addresses this challenge-- hundreds of thousands of jobs for youth while it improves the availability of loans for small business. Moreover, it provides funds for local jurisdictions to prepare for emergencies and disasters. With the exception of those blinded by partisanship, here in Earthquake Country, it is incredible that any California representative would oppose such laudable goals." Imagine having a sensible Representative replace Calvert. You can do more than imagine.

Barney And Rachel Nail The Republicans The Way They Should Be Nailed Every Single Day

If the media wasn't owned lock, stock and barrel by the big corporate interests desperate to maintain the status quo for their own sake, what you're going to see below is how real news and opinion TV would look every day instead of that drivel coming out of CNN, Fox and the broadcast networks.

Rachel starts off on her own-- well, not exactly on her own. She has a little help from Republican Governors Schwarzenegger (CA) and Crist (FL) representing virtually all governors of both parties with the exception of a tiny handful of secessionists and über-partisan hacks like Mark "Tango Dancer" Sanford (SC), Rick Perry (TX), John Hoeven (ND) and delusional presidential aspirants Tim Pawlenty (MN) and Bobby Jindal (LA), in talking about how useful and successful Obama's stimulus package has been in saving and creating jobs, not Inside-the-Beltway, where out-of-touch congressional ideologues spend their lives, but in America, which they all avoid assiduously. Governors of 42 states and 5 territories signed a letter to Pelosi, Reid, Boehner and McConnell urging them to give Obama their "assistance in protecting jobs and speeding economic recovery by extending the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s (ARRA) enhanced federal match for Medicaid (FMAP) for two additional quarters." Yes, even far right Republicans like Haley Barbour (MS), Sonny Perdue (GA), Bob McDonald (VA), Mitch Daniels (IN), Bob Riley (AL), Dave Heineman (NE) and Sean Parnell (AK), when faced with the realities of real life Americans elected congressmembers Inside-the-Beltway are shielded from (they only talk to wealthy donors and lobbyists), aren't willing to throw their state's citizens under the bus for narrow partisan gain.

You'd never know it from listening to obstructionist GOP hacks like Boehner, Cantor, Pence, McCotter, Foxx, Issa, Ryan, McHenry, Schock, etc., but last year's stimulus bill created something like 2.1 million jobs in the last three months of 2009 according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Crist: "We accepted the stimulus money; I think all of my fellow governors did. I think it was the responsible thing to do for the people and it puts people above politics. In Florida alone, for example, it created or maintained at least 87,000 jobs."

Schwarzenegger: "I have been the first of the Republican governors to come out and support the stimulus money... and anyone who says it hasn't created a job can talk to the 150,000 people who have been getting jobs in California."

And then Rachel talked about the grotesque hypocrisy and partisan game-playing of Lindsey Graham, Tim Pawlenty and John McCain. Man, did she nail those three-- especially poor pathetic old McCain! And then she brought on Barney Frank, who's been working with Republicans in Congress since 1980 and has some understanding of what makes them tick, to drive a stake through their hearts. You've got to watch this:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Howard Dean: People Want Strength

Today or yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Stimulus package and everyone was marveling at the conservative hypocrisy epitomized by Republicans fighting against the Stimulus bill before it was passed and lying about its impact since then (especially this week), while sandwiched in between, something like a hundred of them demanded some of that money for their pet projects back home-- and even touted the benefits as though they had passed the legislation!

Disgraced former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, now one of MSNBC's right-wing talking heads, invited Howard Dean and Sam Stein onto his show yesterday to discuss the anniversary. Dean, though effectively and justifiably bashing the Republicans for their crass obstructionism, didn't make any friends at the White House. He forcefully pointed out that the Obama is coming across as weak and incompetent. I'm sure there must be open to the possibility that there might possibly be some people who disagree with the proposition that Obama is one gigantic disappointment... but I've never met one. The best I ever hear about him is that he's better than the alternatives.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Obama's biggest mistake was made on the second day after his election when he chose the Beltway's most over-hyped incompetent, Wall Street shill Rahm Emanuel to run his administration. There is nothing Wall Street could have done more effectively to sabotage that "hopey-changey thing" than placing one of their most dependable operatives right at the heart of the Administration. Emanuel spent his entire career doing three things: enriching himself, ingratiating himself to the richest and most powerful forces, and manufacturing a totally baseless image with the pathetically snookered sucker media in The Village. And Obama fell for it, lock, stock and barrel. Dean didn't-- which is why the most spectacularly successful head of the DNC was replaced by a colorless and failed conservative hack. Yesterday's NY Times said all that is needed to be said about the results of the Stimulus package. Take my word for it-- it isn't what you'll hear parroted by the TV talking heads who reach far more people (and have a different agenda).

Just look at the outside evaluations of the stimulus. Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative.

Yet I’m guessing you don’t think of the stimulus bill as a big success. You’ve read columns (by me, for example) complaining that it should have spent money more quickly. Or you’ve heard about the phantom ZIP code scandal: the fact that a government Web site mistakenly reported money being spent in nonexistent ZIP codes.

And many of the criticisms are valid. The program has had its flaws. But the attention they have received is wildly disproportionate to their importance. To hark back to another big government program, it’s almost as if the lasting image of the lunar space program was Apollo 6, an unmanned 1968 mission that had engine problems, and not Apollo 11, the moon landing.

The reasons for the stimulus’s middling popularity aren’t a mystery. The unemployment rate remains near 10 percent, and many families are struggling. Saying that things could have been even worse doesn’t exactly inspire. Liberals don’t like the stimulus because they wish it were bigger. Republicans don’t like it because it’s a Democratic program. The Obama administration hurt the bill’s popularity by making too rosy an economic forecast upon taking office.

Moreover, the introduction of the most visible parts of the program-- spending on roads, buildings and the like-- has been a bit sluggish. Aid to states, unemployment benefits and some tax provisions have been more successful and account for far more of the bill. But their successes are not obvious.

...The case against the stimulus revolves around the idea that the economy would be no worse off without it. As a Wall Street Journal opinion piece put it last year, “The resilience of the private sector following the fall 2008 panic-- not the fiscal stimulus program-- deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the impressive growth improvement.” In a touch of unintended irony, two of article’s three authors were listed as working at a research institution named for Herbert Hoover.

Of course, no one can be certain about what would have happened in an alternate universe without a $787 billion stimulus. But there are two main reasons to think the hard-core skeptics are misguided-- above and beyond those complicated, independent economic analyses.

The first is the basic narrative that the data offer. Pick just about any area of the economy and you come across the stimulus bill’s footprints.

In the early months of last year, spending by state and local governments was falling rapidly, as was tax revenue. In the spring, tax revenue continued to drop, yet spending jumped-- during the very time when state and local officials were finding out roughly how much stimulus money they would be receiving. This is the money that has kept teachers, police officers, health care workers and firefighters employed.

Then there is corporate spending. It surged in the final months of last year. Mark Zandi of Economy.com (who has advised the McCain campaign and Congressional Democrats) says that the Dec. 31 expiration of a tax credit for corporate investment, which was part of the stimulus, is a big reason.

The story isn’t quite as clear-cut with consumer spending, as skeptics note. Its sharp plunge stopped before President Obama signed the stimulus into law exactly one year ago. But the billions of dollars in tax cuts, food stamps and jobless benefits in the stimulus have still made a difference. Since February, aggregate wages and salaries have fallen, while consumer spending has risen. The difference between the two-- some $100 billion-- has essentially come from stimulus checks.

Government Insurance

-by David Sherbula

I think maybe the Republicans are right. The U.S. Government probably has no business being in the insurance business. But since it already is, it should start off small in eliminating programs. Like Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) said, we need to wind these programs down slowly, so as to not create problems for those people who were counting on them.

I say we start with the U.S. Government Flood Insurance program. Let's put it on Ryan's Roadmap. It is not widely used and is a consistent loser. (That's why it was created. The private sector wouldn't touch it.) 

Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1968 as the government's response to the rising cost of taxpayer funded disaster relief for flood victims and the increasing amount of damage caused by floods. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) manages the NFIP and oversees the floodplain management and mapping components of the program.

...Over 20,000 communities across the United States and its territories participate in the NFIP by adopting and enforcing floodplain management ordinances to reduce future flood damage. In exchange, the NFIP makes Federally backed flood insurance available to homeowners, renters, and business owners in these communities.

Flood damage is reduced by nearly $1 billion a year through partnerships with communities, the insurance industry, and the lending industry. Further, buildings constructed in compliance with NFIP building standards suffer approximately 80 percent less damage annually than those not built in compliance. And, every $3 paid in flood insurance claims saves $1 in disaster assistance payments.

Flood insurance claims and all operating expenses of the program are paid for through premiums. None of these costs are paid by taxpayers.

How could the Republicans vote against eliminating a government insurance program that always loses money? How would Sen. DeMint of South Carolina vote on that? What about ConservaDem Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Senator Cornyn of Texas, are you in? How about you Senator Shelby?  Where do you stand on Government Flood Insurance Senator Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell? And what about all you Republican governors with the big yaps-- and the big floods-- like ole Haley Barbour in Mississippi, Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, Tim Pawlenty in Minnesota, Mark Sanford in South Carolina or Argentina, Sonny Perdue in Georgia and John Hoeven of North Dakota? 

I've seen some pretty horrible floods in Des Moines Senator Grassley; how would you vote?

Common sense tells you not to build in a flood plain or hurricane prone area. If the private sector refuses to insure you, then why should the Government? Why don't people who make a choice to live in these areas have to assume the responsibility? 

I can only hope some member of Congress puts this up to a vote. We'll see who is really against Government Insurance then. On the record.


Note from Howie: Let's see if we can get Darrell Issa, Gary Miller, Buck McKeon, Mary Bono Mack, David Dreier, Ken Calvert and Tom McClintock to introduce a simultaneous bill in the House banning government earthquake insurance. That would go a long way towards making California's congressional delegation a whole lot saner. And speaking of Republican hypocrisy and deceit, the chart showing U.S. job losses (above) and this video explaining the two-faced nature of Republican carping (below) just came out today:

The Republicans Didn't Need Scott Brown For Their Obstructionism After All-- They Already Had Blanche Lincoln And Ben Nelson

Last week, I mentioned that the 60-vote cloture vote to override the Republican filibuster of President Obama's nomination of Patricia Smith would probably be the last time that would ever happen, at least in the current conservative-dominated Senate. I warned, at the time, that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and other far right special interest groups were gunning for another Obama nominee, Craig Becker, slated to become a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) which is charged (since it was created by FDR in 1934) with overseeing elections for labor unions and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Conservatives-- basically all Republicans plus a handful of reactionary Democrats-- are hostile to working people organizing to protect their interests and object when any advocates for working people are appointed to the board that was set up to protect them! Beck, a distinguished Yale graduate and an educator, has been practicing labor law and advocating for low wage workers for almost three decades. He is an associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union.

Obama nominated him on July 9 (along with two others, one of whom is a Senate Republican staffer, Brian Hayes) and all three were given the thumbs up by the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee 3 months later. Although the 3 nominees were part of a bipartisan package, McCain, who is bending over backwards to placate fringe extremists in Arizona who are determined to deny him re-election, put a hold on Becker. The GOP decided to give their newest member, Scott Brown (R-MA) and opportunity to show his disdain for working families by joining his first ritual filibuster yesterday. Late in the afternoon, Reid called for a cloture vote to shut down the filibuster. Brown joined the rest of the obstructions in his party-- all of them-- to vote no. And every Democrat present voted yes-- except two anti-union, anti-working family shills of Big Business, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. The Senate failed to break the filibuster 52-33, 15 members away because of the inclement weather. It was very odd today that Harold Meyerson blames the loss of the imaginary 60 vote filibuster-proof majority for the death of EFCA and the defeat of Craig Becker and doesn't even mention Blanche or Ben's perfidy!

I wonder what unions think, especially the ones that have contributed $800,000 to Nelson's senator career and the ones who have given Blanche Lincoln $580,000 since she was first elected to Congress. I wonder what it will take for unions to start learning their lesson about donating their members' dues to anti-worker Blue Dogs and ConservaDems like Lincoln and Nelson. Lincoln had already rewarded Labor for their support over the years by effectively killing Employee Free Choice when she publicly declared last year-- at a Chamber of Commerce meeting-- that she would join the Republican Party filibuster of EFCA. That's part of the reason Lincoln's approval ratings have dipped to the lowest of any member of the Senate and why it is considered virtually impossible for her to be re-elected to any statewide office in Arkansas, where she is absolutely reviled by all sides. This most recent vote is viewed as a naked play for her post-Senate career as a lobbyist for Big Business. Nelson isn't up for re-election in 2010 and he feels safe to anger Democrats whenever he likes-- which is almost always. He votes with the GOP on close substantive issues more frequently than he votes with Democrats and he's universally considered the worst Democrat in the Senate. This is how the AFL-CIO characterized Nelson's decision Monday night when he had announced that he would join the Republicans in not allowing Becker to have a straight up-or-down vote:

Senator Ben Nelson’s decision to join a Republican filibuster against President Obama’s nomination of Craig Becker to the NLRB is a shame and disappointment. Should he follow through with this decision, Senator Nelson will be leaving working families at a major disadvantage for fair justice in the workplace without a fully staffed NLRB. Furthermore, he will be defying the same principles he adhered to while facing President Bush appointees.
 
Senator Nelson’s decision to put politics over the needs of working families is exactly the Washington politics as usual the American public is tired of. Our country needs leaders who are willing to put the interests of working families over politics and corporate influence.
 
The Republicans accusing Democrats of trying to rush Becker’s nomination through are the same Republicans who have stalled his nomination for over five months. It’s time to give working families the support they need and deserve.

Facing President Bush’s nominations to the Supreme Court in 2005, Nelson authored an OpEd in the Omaha World-Herald where he stated, “The president's nominees…deserve an up-or-down vote, even if the nominee isn't popular with the special-interest groups in Washington.” Nelson also stated that “[Nebraskans] want the president to appoint and the Senate to confirm a ‘good judge’ and, in the process, to avoid labels and resist litmus tests.”

Next week the Senate will be in recess and President Obama will have an opportunity to make recess appointments to the positions clowns like McCain and Shelby (not to mention Nelson and Lincoln) have been blocking. I can't image he'll follow through on his recent threats to do it though. I doubt it because he's still looking for a kind of "bipartisanship" that clueless independent voters say they want, bipartisanship that, as Rachel Maddow put it last night, would be harder to attain with the Republican obstructionists than teaching a dog to drive a car. I hope someone gives Obama this tape of Rachel from last night's show so he can watch what Republicans are worth in terms of his increasingly absurd efforts to bring them into governance. If you missed it, it's worth sticking with it to the very end:

Another Flip Flop From One Of The Most Hypocritical Of Republicans, Wisconsin's Paul Ryan

Later this month it will be one year since the House approved Wisconsin Congressman David Obey's H.R.1, a supplemental appropriations bill, usually referred to as Obama's Stimulus Package, which was meant to finance "job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science," as well as to offer "assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization." It passed 244-188 with not a single Republican vote. [Among the 11 conservative Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with the GOP that day were original Boehner Boy Blue Dogs, Parker Griffith (AL), Allen Boyd (FL), Gene Taylor (MS), Frank Kratovil (MD), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Heath Shuler (NC), Bobby Bright (AL), Jim Cooper (TN), and Colin Peterson (MN).] Democrats who expected some Republican support for the bill were shocked that the GOP House caucus had decided to oppose the bill in lockstep. They at least expected some of the several dozen Republicans who voted for Bush's bank bailouts in 2008 to vote for the Stimulus. It just didn't make sense to be bailing out the banksters but not their victims, the taxpayers.

And yet the Republican House leaders who voted for the bailouts-- both on September 29 (when it failed) and again a few days later (after hysteria from the Bush Regime) on October 3 when it passed with 91 Republican votes-- all opposed the Stimulus legislation to "bail out" ordinary working families. Leading the charge for the GOP on both days were self-professed economic conservative leaders like John Boehner (R-OH), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Dan Lungren (R-CA), Matt Blunt (R-MO), Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Mike Castle (R-DE), David Dreier (R-CA), and, worst of all the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee (as well as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, Paul Ryan (R-WI).

Ryan has been one of the biggest recipients of shady bankster "political contributions," which goes a long way towards explaining why he voted for the bankster bailouts both times and why he voted against breaks for ordinary citizens again and again and again. Walking off with $1,713,095 in "contributions" from the banksters his committee is supposed to be regulating-- more cash than any two members of the Wisconsin congressional delegation in history-- Ryan always votes with the banksters and always votes against working families. Always. Shortly after voting to give hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to sleazy and incompetent baksters. Ryan was lecturing working families that the Stimulus was bad because "sustained growth comes from the work, savings and investment of American families and businesses-- not from the federal government... What we cannot do is borrow and spend our way into prosperity, building up huge federal deficits and calling it 'stimulus.' The intent of a second so-called stimulus-- as advertised by the Democratic majority and President-elect Barack Obama-- is 'to get the economy back on track.' But there is no evidence another huge infusion of federal dollars will stimulate anything more than a temporary jolt in consumer spending, after which the economy returns to its previous course. The only lasting gains of stimulus spending will likely be in higher deficits and debt-- both of which are soaring."

Forget about ganders and geese; many in Wisconsin were shocked when Ryan, who has told his reactionary financial supporters that he wants to repeal the stimulus, announced last week that he is "joining the village of Sharon to fight the loss of $547,000 in stimulus money used to build a storm-water retention system." If this sounds like hypocrisy to you... well, welcome to the world of Rep. Paul Ryan, a world where corrupt politicians make sure taxpayers keep banksters afloat while preaching small (stingy) government when it comes to ordinary working families. This guy is a one-man job destroying machine and he doesn't deserve another free ride to re-election. Wanna help stop him?


UPDATE: Ryan Endorses Rubio

How to insulate himself from his aggressive advocacy of the Bush bankster bailouts? This morning Ryan endorsed extremist and teabagger-darling Marco Rubio. That's more bad news for Wisconsin families looking for good news of the employment or housing front.

Is The Economy Turning Around? A Little?

Wall Street is flying again-- and should soon cross has now crossed the 10,000 point mark. I'm not so sure that the success of a bunch of under-regulated gangsters and con-artists are doing well is such great news. But I was cheered this week to start looking at reports from states pointing to the job creation the Stimulus has been underwriting. Ohio reports that 13,000 full time jobs have been saved or created in the state through the federal stimulus package. The number in Wisconsin is 8,282. Nationwide jobs in education have fared best.

Public school teachers are expected to be the big winners when states reveal for the first time how many jobs were created or saved during the first months of President Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan.
State officials worked into the weekend as part of the most ambitious effort ever to calculate, in real time, the effect of a government spending program.

Whether it is 11 jobs repaving a road in Caldwell, Texas, or one job helping run Utah food banks, states must say exactly what they have done with the federal aid.

The data, to be released in two installments this month by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, the independent body set up by Congress to monitor Recovery Act spending, will come amid growing political pressure on the Obama administration to prove that the stimulus spending is saving and creating jobs.

On Thursday, the board is to release data on the impact of direct spending from federal agencies. That will include jobs such as fixing military bases and national parks.

Later this month, the board is to release grant data on jobs such as construction workers hired to repair local highways using federal money-- and teachers.

Based on preliminary information obtained by the AP from a few states, teachers appear to have benefited most from the early spending.

That is because the stimulus sent billions of dollars to help stabilize state budgets, averting what officials said would have been tens of thousands of teacher layoffs.

In California, the stimulus is credited with saving or creating 62,000 jobs in public schools and state universities. Utah reported saving 2,600 teaching jobs. In both states, education jobs represent about two-thirds of the total number of jobs saved. Missouri reported saving 8,500 school jobs and Minnesota 5,900.
In Michigan, where officials said 19,500 jobs had been saved or created, three out of four are in education.

Construction companies also are expected to report strong job numbers thanks to billions of dollars in highway money, but those figures will vary by state, because some have spent the money faster than others.

We'll all be eager to see www.recovery.gov post its first comprehensive reports tomorrow. Meanwhile, though, Obama's Wall Street guy, Lawrence Summers, claimed yesterday that the administration had "helped pull the U.S. economy back from the abyss with aggressive efforts to spur growth and stabilize financial markets."

Defending policies that Republicans have attacked as ineffective, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers argued measures put in place by the administration, including a $787 billion stimulus package, had helped turn back the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression.

"Thanks largely to the Recovery Act, alongside an aggressive financial stabilization plan and a program to keep responsible homeowners in their homes, we have walked a substantial distance back from the economic abyss and are on the path toward economic recovery," Summers wrote to House Republican leader John Boehner.

Obama is facing rising clamor to take new steps to lift the economy and jump-start job growth as the U.S. unemployment rate edges toward 10 percent.

The bleak jobs picture, and soaring fiscal deficits that reflect the cost of battling the recession, could put some of Obama's Democratic allies at risk in next year's congressional elections, unless voters are convinced they are doing all they can to help the economy.

"Every American is asking this administration: Where are the jobs?" Boehner said in a statement. The Ohio Republican noted the economy had lost roughly 3 million jobs since Congress had approved the stimulus package in mid-February.

Responding to a letter Boehner had sent Obama, Summers pointed to a slowing pace of job losses as evidence that the administration's policies were working. "We have seen a substantial change in the trend of job loss," he said... Summers told Boehner that private forecasters have estimated that the stimulus program added 3 percentage points to second quarter GDP, tempering what would have been an even deeper economic swoon.

He also said they believe the unemployment rate would be 2 percentage points lower by the end of 2010 than it would have been without the stimulus plan.

Most forecasters estimate the economy resumed growth in the third quarter, although some still worry about the risk of a "double dip" recession in which the recovery stalls.

Summers took note of the improvement in U.S. stock market performance since early this year and of recent data suggesting the housing market, which was central to the financial market collapse, was stabilizing.

Hitting back at Republicans who are trying to lay blame on Obama for a record U.S. budget deficit, Summers said Obama inherited a deficit well in excess of $1 trillion when he took office. He said the policies of Obama's Republican predecessor, former President George W. Bush, led to the shortfall.

"The bipartisan commitment to fiscal discipline that existed during the 1990s evaporated during the 2000s. Every major policy enacted during this period violated the principle of paying for new proposals," Summers wrote.

Although the Wall Street contingent surrounding Obama (Summer-Emanuel-Geithner-Bernanke) would never go for it, what needs to happen now-- and, no doubt, what FDR would have done-- is to raise taxes on the wealthiest slice of society that benefited in such an unbalanced way under the Bush Regime, and then use that money to boost the Stimulus, which really was only half done on the first round.

Meanwhile, Robert Borasage of he Campaign for America's Future is worrying about the conservative jihad we'll all see tomorrow as the House Financial Services Committee starts the process of weakening Obama's consumer protection measures on behalf of their corporate paymasters. "Without strong regulation of the banks and the shadow banking system," said Borasage this morning, "large banks will feel free to gamble with the assumption that taxpayers will cover their losses. This is a recipe for another financial debacle." But instead of having elected representatives to protect us against the financial systems predators and incompetents, we have Republicans and Blue Dogs completely beholden to Wall Street, willing to impoverish their own constituents to protect their campaign financiers.

Patty has gobbled up $968,910 in thinly veiled bribes from banking sector since 2004

The banking lobby has been working the backrooms to weaken the reforms proposed by the administration. The central administration proposal – the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect consumers from financial frauds and rip-offs – has already been critically compromised. Financial institutions are no longer required to offer consumers simple and plain basic mortgages and loans. The enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act has been stripped from the CFPA. And even worse, the oversight authority of the new agency is placed in a council of the very same regulators that failed consumers completely in the run-up to the financial collapse. Rewarding their failure is simply indefensible.

The committee also seems intent on weakening rather than strengthening the current inadequate laws relating to derivatives, the exotic financial instruments that Warren Buffett termed “weapons of financial mass destruction.” This is simply abandoning the public interest to serve the private interests of the banks.

When Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin declared that the “banks own the place,” he clearly wasn’t kidding. But legislators should beware. The banking lobby got its way when few were looking and even fewer could understand the arcane battles over deregulation.

Those days are gone. Americans have lost trillions of dollars in savings and assets because of the irresponsibility of a financial industry that turned itself into a casino, taking bets without even the prudence that a Las Vegas bookie exercises. Then they demanded hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars to bail them out or they would bring down the entire global economy. Americans are livid and paying attention. Voters will hold accountable legislators who undermine the reforms we need to serve their Wall Street contributors.

Comedy Tonight: Mike Lane looks at the R's dumping on the president's handling of the economy

[Click to enlarge]

Talk about weird: This morning NPR's Morning Edition had a reporter interviewing House Minority Whip Eric "God Gave Me a Brain but He Can't Make Me Use It" Cantor to find out how long the Obama administration has to deliver on its economic promises. What's weird is that everyone knows, or should know, that Eric Cantor (1) doesn't know anything about economics and (2) automatically opposes, with the fiber of his sad being, everything said by anyone connected to the administration before they even say it.

To judge from his public utterances, Eric not only has no ideas about what to do about the fine mess Republican economics got us into, he seems to be one of those official R's whose view is: "Depression? What depression? I'm doin' fine, man."

And so he did just what you'd expect: He lied his fool head off. Most notably, he simply invented promises he claimed the president had made, starting with an immediate halt to the downslide. Of course the president went out of his way to promise no such thing. The need for immediate action was to try to minimize the further blood-letting. Now, of course, in the tiny Republican brain, our economic woes are all the present administration's fault.

Unfortunately for Eric, the reporter wasn't much interested in his brave rhetoric. All the reporter wanted to know was, how long does the president have? How much clearer was Eric going to have to make it that, as far as he's concerned, that the president has already run out of time -- oh, about Inauguration Day. (Or was it Election Day?)

Now I have major problems with the way the stimulus program and other economic fights have been waged, but they're all in the opposite direction: that the administration conceded way too much -- like those wildly unproductive tax cuts (which I notice Eric wasn't screaming about) -- to Republicans who were never going to support its programs anyway. The R contribution, of course, has been to scream "socialism!" at everything the administration does and cheer every piling on of bad economic news. Nothing seems to gladden a Republican heart more than news of misery and suffering spreading among ordinary Americans, carrying with it as it does the possibility of future votes for a party that has no ideas or even compassion, just self-interest and venom. -- Ken

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Mark Sanford Cries Uncle As South Carolina Cheers

Tears of two clowns from South Carolina

A whole gaggle of extremist Republican governors of reactionary states, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Rick Perry of Texas, Sarah Palin of Alaska, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, maybe a couple other kooks got on their high horses and said they wouldn't accept stimulus money meant for education and unemployment benefits. Their citizens and state legislatures told them to stop playing politics with real peoples' real lives and one by one each quietly backed down-- except the most fanatic, venal and insane of the lot, Mark Sanford. Until yesterday. Then he backed down too.

In the morning the Wall Street Journal was reporting how Sanford's own far right base was crumbling around his tin ears and a few hours later down came the flag of obstructionist defiance and up came the white flag of Know Nothing failure. South Carolina has the second highest unemployment rate in the country (closing in on 12%) and the folks in this state are more interested in the $700 million Obama was offering to help than in Sanford's plans to run for vice president in 2012 on a platform of obstructionism now, obstructionism tomorrow, obstructionism forever.

"I'm real disappointed in the governor that he's doing what he's doing for political reasons, apparently," said Lexington County Sheriff James Metts, a Republican who echoed the rising indignation among the governor's core base of conservative voters. "We have programs that are being cut, school teachers being cut, jobs being lost by the thousand across the state."

Jimmy Ray Douglas agreed. The 66-year-old owner of Carolina Furniture Co. whose donations to the national Republican Party earned him Christmas cards from former President George W. Bush, said: "We need every cent we can get in South Carolina."

...Mr. Sanford and the president of the University of South Carolina, the state's eight-campus public university, are feuding over looming cuts that would come on top of a 25% decrease in state dollars since June. The university has cut class sections, frozen hiring and stopped buying library books, among other measures, said Harris Pastides, the university's president.

There are 100 Republicans in the state legislature and eleven of them supported Sanford's hard-line. That wasn't enough, although, always ready to play the clown, he's waiting until midnight tonight, the legal deadline, before accepting. It is estimated that the funds will help South Carolina create or preserve 50,000 jobs.

Sanford will likely continue to tussle with state general assembly leaders from his own Republican Party over his insistence that at least some of the disputed $700 million pay off debt, despite $1.1 billion in state budget cuts already imposed this year because of revenue shortfalls.

Sanford's expected move is an implicit acknowledgement that for weeks he'd erroneously claimed control over only the $700 million in education funds, not over the entire $8 billion package.

In fact, Sanford's failure to request the stimulus funds by midnight Friday would have imperiled all $8 billion reserved for his state.

The stimulus package, an ambitious bid by Obama to jolt the economy, provides $8 billion to South Carolina for Medicaid payments, road and bridge repairs and construction, unemployment benefits, police officers, tax cuts and a host of other needs.

In a day filled with brinksmanship, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., warned that Sanford was jeopardizing South Carolina's share of the funds.

"Does Governor Sanford intend to meet the minimal prerequisite certification requirement in order to reserve the right for the state to seek funds in the future?" a Clyburn written statement asked. "Or will he put all economic stimulus funding in jeopardy?"