Recovery.gov... use it

We've been given a tool of oversight. We'll never know if it works unless we use it.

We'll also never know if our representatives, mayors and governors are making use of the money being allotted to us by this economic stimulus package if we don't pay attention and demand it.

We may have to demand our slice of this pie; especially those of us who live in GOP strongholds (or former GOP strongholds.) Will Indiana governor Mitch Daniels (R) make use of our share of this stimulus? Will he even accept it? I don't trust that man any farther than I can throw him. I'll be watching closely.

The GOP seems determined to make this economic stimulus plan fail. In the process, the American people will suffer terribly, our economy may collapse, and our nation may be plunged into a depression from which there is no escape.

Yes, it appears they would let this happen to their country before allowing a Democratic president achieve success. Their partisanship knows no bounds. Well, except for a few Republicans who seem to grasp the severity of our situation.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger:

"When people need to have roads built, when we talk about infrastructure in America, we need $1.7 trillion to $2 trillion of infrastructure in America. Who cares if you're a Republican or Democrat? Everyone is using the roads. Everyone would use high-speed rail. Everyone uses the infrastructure and all of those things, the schools, the kids. It doesn't matter," he said.

"The horrible thing about politics is that, the more they attack each other, the more that they try to derail each other, the worse it is for the people. That's why ... you know, you've got to go beyond just the principles. You've got to go and say, 'What is right for the country right now?'" Schwarzenegger said.

A New York Times Editorial lays it out even more directly:

Imagine yourself jobless and struggling to feed your family while the governor of your state threatens to reject tens of millions of dollars in federal aid earmarked for the unemployed. That is precisely what is happening in poverty-ridden states like Louisiana and Mississippi where Republican governors are threatening to turn away federal aid rather than expand access to unemployment insurance programs in ways that many other states did a long time ago.

What makes these bad decisions worse is that they are little more than political posturing by rising Republican stars, like Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina. This behavior reinforces the disturbing conclusion that the Republican Party seems more interested in ideological warfare than in working on policies that get the country back on track.

It is useless explaining to these pouting - or posturing - Republicans that their obstructionist behavior amounts to, at the very least, a serious breach of patriotism. More realistically, many in the GOP are demonstrating an outright betrayal of their pledge to serve the people.

Republicans aren't serving the people's interest if they stand in the way of legislation that will help us keep our homes, jobs and get affordable health care. There is simply no way to spin this that doesn't make them look like heartless, selfish, partisan politicians.

What we need right now are leaders. The rest can shut up and sit down -- the election is over, and we don't want to hear anything they have to say unless it is about helping our nation and suffering people recover. They certainly had their chance - they blew it on an epic scale.

This stimulus is only going to be successful if we all get behind it and push for it. Demand it. Insist on it. Lean on our congressmen and senators - weekly, if necessary. Remind them that their only hope for re-election depends on cooperation, and that we're watching them right now, and we WILL remember how they voted when our interests were on the line.

Recovery.gov... check it out.

Communication, technology... AND transparency?

Our communication cup runneth over.

After Bush's secrecy, this is a bit overwhelming... but impressive. Recovery.gov is now live. Government transparency lives (probably like never before... but then we've never been this jaded and suspicious before. Bush and Cheney tried to hide their every move, no doubt because most of them were illegal.)

This will be a hard act for any future president to follow. Communication and accountability. Clinton did a pretty good job at this, but Obama is putting all of those community organizer skills into play and using all of the new internet technology (well, all except releasing state secrets via twitter...)

Our nation (sans the grumpy holdouts) is now one big community. And we're organizing.

I recall watching sadly as the White House website took a major nosedive after Clinton left office. In fact, it was pretty well non-existent. W had nothing to say to us. I believe it was several months - at the very least - before someone must have mentioned to Bush that he might want to at least put a few 'feel good' stories about the presidential dog on the vacant site.

Its nice to have a new president that talks to us like fellow adults and citizens.

I hear our grandparents had a president like this. In fact I've listened to his famous fireside chats. I turned to them on a number of occasions during the Bush Administration, reaching back in time for some historical comfort.

I haven't done that since January 20th. I don't have to. This president uses YouTube!

Thank you to the handful; shame on the rest

Thank you to the THREE brave Republican senators who crossed the GOP partisan line and voted for our stimulus. Arlen Specter. Olympia Snowe. Susan Collins. Thank you for putting our national interests ahead of partisan politics.

I recently saw an op-ed by Specter in the Washington Post:

I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason: The country cannot afford not to take action.

The unemployment figures announced Friday, the latest earnings reports and the continuing crisis in banking make it clear that failure to act will leave the United States facing a far deeper crisis in three or six months. By then the cost of action will be much greater -- or it may be too late.

This reason makes sense. This reason is rational, and shows that Senator Specter recognizes the gravity of our national situation and cares about our collective survival.

So what is wrong with the rest of his party? Even my own Senator Lugar voted lockstep with his GOP peers, casting his vote against our bill.

The banks have their money (and are already back, asking for more.) But this bill was for the people; for all of us who were crushed when the greedy bankers and speculators ran amok under Bush and the GOP gilded age.

Yes, this mess was created by eight years of greedy excess, with no oversight and plenty of winks and nods from the GOP. I'm sure the seeds began long before W was elected. But removing all federal oversight turned a smoldering fire into a raging inferno. The fire has now spread across both oceans and has threatened the global economy.

Heckuva job, guys.

And so now we all turn to the government for help, as the only entity powerful enough to right our national ship. As Lincoln wisely noted: "If all men were just there would be some, although not as much need for government."

And all men are not just. Not even close. It only takes one Madoff - plundering without any apparent government oversight - to bring down benevolent giants.

That even Indiana's Senator Lugar couldn't bring himself to vote nonpartisan... this is a great disappointment. For me, this pretty well signals the final inglorious swan-dive of the GOP.

Due to GOP screaming, this bill is now laced with tax cuts that siphon money away from the programs we really need.

Tax cuts have never worked for anyone but the very rich - which is why the GOP supports them (when voting, they cater to their real base.) Now there is less stimulus money available for rebuilding our roads, dams, bridges and levees; improving our lagging educational system, our health care system (health care costs are the number one cause of bankruptcy in this nation,) and creating an alternative energy grid.

All of these desperately-needed projects create new jobs. They also will address our crumbling national infrastructure, which just wasn't a priority for the GOP. Apparently the wealthy never drive over out-dated bridges or live below aging damns.

Or reside below Gulf Coast levees.

But because they have a lot of money, they adore tax cuts. This is only logical. The more money you have, the higher your taxes. A tax relief check for most of us would barely pay off a credit card. This is supposed to stimulate our economy? No -- only satisfy the wealthy who fill the GOP political coffers.

Think about it. What is the point of a tax cut if you've lost your job due to a factory closing? How will a tax cut help you if you've already lost your home?

The GOP is dead. The die is cast.

Our entire state turned blue because people here are desperate for change, yet our remaining republican representatives still won't represent us. They stubbornly play political games while people here suffer and grow angrier by the day. I expect they will be out the door in the next election. We watch the president -- because we can see he is aware of our pain, listening and trying to help us -- we set our jaws, and we vow to do whatever we can do to make this work.

We will do it from the ground up; with federal assistance and a will to survive. And we will proceed without the GOP. They have rendered themselves obsolete as a force in American government, and the politics they hold more dear than anything else, including the best interests of our nation.

Rather than owning up to the failures of the last eight years - which they could at any point have addressed, to head this off - they stubbornly refuse to work with the Democratic majority that we elected (the majority of voters) and the ACTION that is being taken to address our national crisis.

By voting against our stimulus bill, they voted against the American people... hoping and betting that the economy won't turn around before the 2010 election; rearranging the political deck chairs as our nation sinks.

It appears they finally ripped off that American flag they've been hiding behind.

But thank you to the three senate republicans who stepped forward. History will remember you kindly. And we all owe you a debt of gratitude... and maybe even a thankful phone call.

Jon Stewart: The Death of Hope

(No comment.)

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Obama takes charge

Its great to have a real president again.

Its also great to see that he is (obviously) as frustrated as we are out here. No wonder he wanted out of the Senate. Its obviously no place for a guy who wants to make a difference.

I suppose America had to survive a Hoover and a Bush before we could appreciate a Roosevelt and an Obama. Apparently we've paid our dues, just like our grandparents' generation. We have a full-blown disaster... and a terrific leader.

What they cut

According to CNN, the following was cut out of our stimulus bill... in favor of 'tax cuts.'

Partially cut:

• $3.5 billion for energy-efficient federal buildings (original bill $7 billion)

• $75 million from Smithsonian (original bill $150 million)

• $200 million from Environmental Protection Agency Superfund (original bill $800 million)

• $100 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (original bill $427 million)

• $100 million from law enforcement wireless (original bill $200 million)

• $300 million from federal fleet of hybrid vehicles (original bill $600 million)

• $100 million from FBI construction (original bill $400 million)

Fully eliminated

• $55 million for historic preservation

• $122 million for Coast Guard polar icebreaker/cutters

• $100 million for Farm Service Agency modernization

• $50 million for Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service

• $65 million for watershed rehabilitation

• $100 million for distance learning

• $98 million for school nutrition

• $50 million for aquaculture

• $2 billion for broadband

• $100 million for National Institute of Standards and Technology

• $50 million for detention trustee

• $25 million for Marshalls Construction

• $300 million for federal prisons

• $300 million for BYRNE Formula grant program

• $140 million for BYRNE Competitive grant program

• $10 million state and local law enforcement

• $50 million for NASA

• $50 million for aeronautics

• $50 million for exploration

• $50 million for Cross Agency Support

• $200 million for National Science Foundation

• $100 million for science

• $1 billion for Energy Loan Guarantees

• $4.5 billion for General Services Administration

• $89 million General Services Administration operations

• $50 million from Department of Homeland Security

• $200 million Transportation Security Administration

• $122 million for Coast Guard Cutters, modifies use

• $25 million for Fish and Wildlife

• $55 million for historic preservation

• $20 million for working capital fund

• $165 million for Forest Service capital improvement

• $90 million for State and Private Wildlife Fire Management

• $1 billion for Head Start/Early Start

• $5.8 billion for Health Prevention Activity

• $2 billion for Health Information Technology Grants

• $600 million for Title I (No Child Left Behind)

• $16 billion for school construction

• $3.5 billion for higher education construction

• $1.25 billion for project based rental

• $2.25 billion for Neighborhood Stabilization

• $1.2 billion for retrofitting Project 8 housing

• $40 billion for state fiscal stabilization (includes $7.5 billion of state incentive grants)

So let me see here... the GOP doesn't like schools, health prevention and IS technology, the environment (but we knew that;) they don't like the Coast Guard (those jerks that rescued thousands from rooftops during Katrina -- the only government entity to actually show up in time, which undoubtedly made the rest of the Federal Response look terrible;) and of course, they don't like NASA because NASA scientists keep warning us about Climate Change.

The GOP doesn't want to help farmers, clean up environmental disasters like the coal slag mess in Tennessee; they snubbed their noses at making buildings more energy efficient (burn baby burn!) and of course we know they don't believe in science, so they sure won't spend any of our money on it. They obviously don't see why anyone (but themselves) needs broadband, they're certainly not going to protect communities down-river from aging dams (watershed rehabilitation,) they don't care about the desperate needs of many states, and refuse to fund local law enforcement, they flat out reject the needs of Fish & Wildlife, our national parks and... history.

Wait a minute... this is our tax money, right? Don't all of these services... serve... us?

Why am I getting the impression that electing a president that understands our needs was completely useless without cleaning out the senate?

Senate Democrats are useless. They are no different than Senate Republicans (also useless, but organized and determined to put business interests ahead of our needs.) Senate Democrats seem... entirely lacking in any kind of determination. They just sit there, like lumps, whenever it is time to stand up and fight for their constituents (supposedly their constituents include us.)

Senate Democrats won't fight for citizen Americans, won't fight for our programs, won't fight for the president's reform platform (the platform that swept them back into office with a majority;) they won't even fight for their supposed party principles. They whine and insist that they 'don't have the votes;' when this time we know damn well they have the votes. We made sure of that.

They are the passive aggressive business interest representatives pretending to confront the aggressive business interest representatives. They all belong to the same country club.

Harry Reid is the perfect poster child for everything that is wrong with the Wishy-washy Democratic Party. He is Charlie Brown in a business suit. Every time GOP-Lucy holds out that football, he happily takes off running, then predictably falls, face in the mud.

This is what we have to work with? This is going to somehow save our country?

Jon pretty well sums it up

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The Winter of our Discontent

Why are we letting a group of millionaires decide the fate of the working middle class? Is this what our democracy has boiled down to? That millionaire senators can hack apart the bill that would save our jobs and homes, then drive off in their BMWs -- no wait, they all have drivers (and its not like they pay any of these taxes. We sure got a heads up on that this past week.)

These senators don't get it. Because surely... they have no reason to get it. Why would they get it? What have they lost?

Even if we voted them out of office, they'd immediately land a lucrative job with a lobbying firm. And to those corporate lobbying firms that are their future employers, their loyalties are clear.

The Senate plan, reached in an agreement late Friday night between Democrats and three moderate Republicans, focuses more heavily on tax cuts, provides far less generous health care subsidies for the unemployed and lowers a proposed increase in food stamps. To help allay Republican concerns about cost, the Senate proposal even scales back President Obama’s signature middle-class tax cut.

They hacked it to shreds.

The Senate makes me absolutely crazy. They are so out of touch it's frightening. Or they simply do not care.

One thing is obvious: they don't represent the people. Yet they are deciding our fate.

Oh, and Arizona Senator Kyl: you who had the gall to say:

"In discussing with the American people his approach to the stimulus of our economy, he (Obama) has first really used some dangerous words," said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican. Mr. Kyl added, "It seems to me that the president is rather casually throwing out some careless language."

Dangerous words? Careless language? Really now.

Well it can't possibly compare with this, now can it?

Arizona talk show host Barry Young was on the air with U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl talking about the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina about the exact moment the Big Easy was drowning under 20 feet of water. Young was in favor of a strong national response to help the disaster-stricken area.

Kyl: "Because the question is if people know year after year after year a natural disaster occurs in a particular place and people continue to build there and want to live there, should they bear the responsibility of buying insurance or should everyone else bear the responsibility?"

Jerk.

Time to lean on the Senate

(Pardon me for one moment while I mount my soapbox.)

We Americans have watched over a trillion dollars - of our taxes - disappear during the war in Iraq. We have watched our jobs move overseas, our infrastructure fail, entire American cities drown (without being rebuilt,) and homes foreclosing all across the country.

Adding insult to injury, we were then asked to bail out Wall Street -- after Wall Street destroyed our economy.

Now we're really hurting, and there are still lawmakers in Washington who wish to deny us our right to spend OUR TAX MONEY on ourselves: to rebuild our American infrastructure, save homes and create jobs.

Don't listen to the elitist insider media spin -- this is our money, only this time it is earmarked to be spent on us.

There are people in Washington who -- whether for political or elitist reasoning -- don't feel we are worth this kind of expenditure. They say the price tag is too high. In their way of thinking, it is fine to spend trillions on foreign wars that have made the world less safe and which had no relationship at all with 9/11. They are happy to give welfare handouts to greedy banks, no strings attached. But they are steadfastly refusing to use our tax dollars to rebuild America.

That is the real argument in Washington. This is the crux of the matter at hand. The GOP is afraid that if this stimulus package passes and is signed into law -- and successfully turns the economic tide -- they will never regain their power in this country. And they are probably right. But this is their own fault -- they ran amok for eight years and drove this country into the ground.

And now -- as Rush Limbaugh came right out and said -- they don't want President Obama to be successful, even if failure means the destruction of our country and way of life.

The GOP doesn't seem to understand any game but partisan.

Many Republican politicians are again putting party before country; demanding that things be done their way, after proving for eight years that their way is disastrous for everyone but the very wealthy. They don't care about us. But they want us to make trouble for President Obama (even after we overwhelmingly elected him) so that his stimulus plan is unsuccessful.

They are playing partisan games while people are losing jobs and homes. We don't have time for this.

Call your senators, and lean on them hard. Its time our tax money was spent on American citizens!

Democrats: Offense!!

Perhaps they were bullied as children. Perhaps they are afraid of the loud crashes and clangs that are predictably coming out of the corporate media (run now almost entirely by a handful of powerful elite.) Perhaps they still don't comprehend what happened last November; that we handed them a REAL mandate.

A mandate for change.

It is past time that Congressional Democrats grew a little spine and delivered on promises made.

They cowered for two years since we gave them a majority in the House in 2007, and now they still don't seem to comprehend... that our latest electoral shout indicates that we are no longer asking, but are demanding a change from the last eight years.

Stop listening to the GOP! Damn it -- stop cowering!

But don't listen to me... who am I, anyway? Some miscellaneous American citizen. A blogger, no less. (Eww.)

You certainly ignore me when I call your offices, trying to make my opinion heard.

No, don't listen to me -- listen to Krugman. Perhaps his Nobel prize will get your attention.

On the Edge
By PAUL KRUGMAN

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.

It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.

Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.

It’s hard 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.

Consumers, their wealth decimated and their optimism shattered by collapsing home prices and a sliding stock market, have cut back their spending and sharply increased their saving — a good thing in the long run, but a huge blow to the economy right now. Developers of commercial real estate, watching rents fall and financing costs soar, are slashing their investment plans. Businesses are canceling plans to expand capacity, since they aren’t selling enough to use the capacity they have. And exports, which were one of the U.S. economy’s few areas of strength over the past couple of years, are now plunging as the financial crisis hits our trading partners.

Meanwhile, our main line of defense against recessions — the Federal Reserve’s usual ability to support the economy by cutting interest rates — has already been overrun. The Fed has cut the rates it controls basically to zero, yet the economy is still in free fall.



Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.

Read more...

Jon Stewart addresses the GOP Stimulus plan

(Er, what plan? OH... that's right... tax cuts again. Yawn.)

Why does the GOP hate us?

We need jobs, infrastructure, schools, jobs, health care we can afford, jobs, a green energy grid, jobs -- we the American citizens who live here on a day to day basis (not the wealthy bankers the GOP was happy to pay off for their epic failure - no strings attached and sure, buy that jet you've been wanting) need all of these things. And we pay the taxes that fund these things. We pay for this stuff -- why can't we get it?

What will it take to GET THE GOP OUT OF OUR WAY?

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Stim City

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Zero votes. They blew it.

Dear President Obama:

I laud your attempts at bipartisanship. You bent over backwards - and even bent your stimulus plan over backwards - in an attempt to strike up a deal with House Republicans. In spite of everything you did, not a single one of these seasoned politicians voted in favor of it.

In my opinion... they blew it.

And we - who voted for you in record numbers based on your platform and a return to 'government of the people' - are waiting for the plan you promised us. We don't want a GOP watered-down version either. We want the real thing.

If the GOP won't vote for a compromise, one that even includes their ridiculous tax cuts, I say give us what you promised us in its pure form so that it will do the most good for the greatest number of people.

The GOP has lost all bargaining power. As usual, they overreached. They probably believe they conned you into weakening your position, weakening your plan, and that they 'stuck it to you in the end.'

Its time to walk away from their partisan con games and do this right. You aren't being partisan if you are representing the majority of Americans that voted for you, for your ideas, and for the change you represent. Do the right thing for the country, for the people who voted for you.

We want change. The GOP and their ideas don't work - the change we want is change from their failed ideas and ideology. President Obama: you tried. You reached out, they bit your hand.

There will be plenty of time for bipartisanship in the future. Right now we need a full-strength stimulus plan - sans stupid tax breaks and including a much beefed up infrastructure plan - that will really put Americans back to work.

If the GOP had answers, they had eight years to implement them. Instead, they ran this country into the ground.

We want change... and we're tired of the GOP standing in the way. We voted the majority of them out so that we could get this country back on track. And it wasn't easy. Don't let this small handful of bad apples ruin our stimulus plan. We're pretty desperate out here.

Thank you for listening.

Dear Lou: look outside

Lou’s Line-Item Veto: Climate Change

Television

Tonight we investigate the Stimulus bill’s proposed $390 million for climate change research. We pose the questions Americans want answered. How will this $390M stimulate the economy? How many jobs will be created? And who exactly will benefit if the money is spent? Join us tonight for, Lou’s Line-Item Veto: Climate Change.

Lou wants to line-veto the study of climate change from the stimulus package. You've got to be kidding me. Lou: we have over two feet of snow outside our house... here, in Southern Indiana, where we rarely see snow at all. We're literally snowed and iced in. The temperature has only cracked 30 degrees a few days this entire winter. The lowest was -6. It never drops to -6 here.

The last two winters were too wet. Twice the electrical poles washed down the side of the hill due to erosion. Farmers were delayed in their planting by months because their fields had become lakes.

Two years ago, we had mosquito swarms on New Years Day. This winter is too cold; more like Chicago (or the Arctic) than Southern Indiana. Last summer we had an epic flood; our rivers overflowed and drowned several entire cities. No one alive has ever seen anything like it. Late summers have been drifting into drought conditions, killing the corn as it stands in the fields. And realize, this is the corn that was already planted late because of the flooding.

Are you starting to get it?

Our farmers are now struggling to grow corn. You know, corn -- this is the corn belt. Growing corn is what we do. We grow the food the country eats.

Do you live in a city, Lou? Then maybe you haven't noticed the chaos outside your window. Until you do, please leave climate change for the scientists and everyone who does look out the window. That scientific gag has been in place for eight long years, and its past time we found out what we're dealing with here. Those of us in Indiana know something is very, very wrong.

That, and we're now dodging tornadoes as late as Thanksgiving and even Christmas.

Tornado season used to be springtime... now its 'any time.' The one commonality in all of this chaos is that everything we see in the way of weather is extreme. Extremely wet, extremely dry, extremely cold. The rising and falling barometric pressure changes are now so steep - and happen so quickly - that many people suffer from migraines when a front moves in.

As for your claim that there are no jobs in the study of climate change; sure there are. There are jobs in every industry willing to hire American citizens.

Layoffs spread through all sectors of economy

Layoffs, like an economic flu bug sweeping across the nation, have now infected manufacturing and IS jobs. The job cut disease is reaching epidemic proportions; and the fever won't start to break until the economic stimulus flu medicine makes it out of congress.

So. To our 'friends' in congress... hurry it up, will you? Its cold out here.

We have almost a foot of new snow, its in the 20s (again and every day now; and this in a section of the country where 'winter weather' usually means 30s or 40s.) People are losing their jobs. People are struggling to pay heating bills that are unusually high this winter, due to the extreme cold. And of course... people are losing their houses.

Monday’s parade of negative news comes after months of announcements from other prominent companies like Citigroup, General Electric, Nokia and Harley-Davidson. As part of its acquisition of Wyeth, Pfizer said it would cut the combined workforce by 19,500 employees.

Yes, Citigroup. The very Citigroup that received a $50 billion bailout from our government, and then went out and bought a new corporate jet. Nice to see they have their priorities straight.

On Wednesday, the tally of mass layoffs for December will be released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Already, the bureau says the United States economy has shed 2.55 million jobs since the recession began, pushing the unemployment rate up to 7.2 percent last month.



“The economy is deteriorating at a faster clip than even the most dreary forecasts had expected,” said Joseph Brusuelas, an economist who, bucking the current job market trend, will soon start a new job at Moody’s Economy.com. “At the current trend, $43 billion will not be sufficient should we breach 9 percent unemployment and maybe reach into the double digits.”

I read the news today - oh boy (ongoing)

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 -- 8:45 AM ET
-----

Bush Calls Plan to Invest $250 Billion in Banks 'Essential'

President Bush, speaking from the Rose Garden Tuesday before the markets opened in New York, called the government plan to invest up to $250 billion in banks essential to help assure stability in the financial system. The president described the government's new proposal, which includes a guarantee on new debt issued by banks and other measures, as "unprecedented and aggressive."

Excuse me... I'd like to ask a question, if I may. Is this $250 billion of which you speak part of the $750+ billion we already gave (had taken from us;) or is this to be an additional $250 bailout added on to the first?

And while you're bailing out Wall Street CEOs and bankers, I can't help but notice that your party doesn't want any part in developing a modest ($300 billion) bailout plan for us. Yes - a teeny-tiny $300 billion slice (of that trillion pie that we're paying for already) that would actually help the citizens who are footing this 'unprecedented and aggressive' Wall Street/Banker bailout.

What - not even a crumb for us?

A House Republican aide quickly dismissed a $300 billion stimulus package as "even more irresponsible and ridiculous" than the smaller packages Democrats have previously discussed. Republicans are particularly resistant to spending federal money on "a huge public works plan" or "bailing out states who spent a lot more money than they should have," House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said Sunday on ABC News's "This Week."

In a letter yesterday to Pelosi, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) laid out an alternative plan for stimulating the economy that includes cutting taxes on corporations and capital gains, as well as some new provisions that Democrats said could form the basis of a compromise. Boehner's tone, however, was far from conciliatory.

"Nothing currently being discussed by the Majority as 'stimulus' will stabilize the economy long-term," Boehner wrote. "Our constituents are not looking at the mess in Washington or Wall Street and asking the federal government to take care of other governments. They are not asking for . . . pork-barrel spending masquerading as 'stimulus.'"

The White House had threatened to veto previous Democratic stimulus packages, though the rhetoric has softened as the economy has worsened. In recent days, White House officials have declined to comment directly on the proposals, noting that a package could not be approved until lawmakers return to Washington Nov. 17.

Oh yes - cut corporate taxes again. That will certainly help the people who are losing their jobs and homes. I'm surprised American corporations are still paying taxes; I thought the GOP let them off the hook years ago.

Besides, most corporations have moved offshore. We don't work for them. They wanted cheap labor, freedom from providing employee health care, freedom from unions and zero government oversight - freedom from responsibility to anyone but their shareholders. And in the wake of their mass defection, many American citizens are now unemployed.

How are we expected to buy these Walmart 'goods' now flooding in from China - the lead-filled toys and poisoned food - if we don't have wages or homes in which to keep them?

At least bow to simple logic, if not to patriotism and compassion.

Oh and please remind us once again, because we've forgotten: why would we vote Republican in this election? Are you going solely for the masochist vote this time?