PrintJanuary 29, 2009
Republicans Won
In a stunning turn of events, House Republicans won a critical symbolic victory yesterday in uniting against Obama's $1 trillion phony economic "stimulus" plan.
Republicans did the right thing yesterday. Even ABC's Good Morning America, normally a hotbed of support for Democrats and Democrat causes, faithfully reported that the bill seemed little more than a huge serving of pork.
The only thing that can stimulate the economy right away is tax cuts. The Democrat plan provides paltry cuts and credits that will provide a meager $12 per week to most workers. Whoopee! I'll buy the first round of coffee. You want to stimulate the economy? Put big bucks back in citizens' hands NOW. A tax holiday for a few months, a la the Gohmert plan, would do that, instantly. A permanent across the board tax cut, would do much more.
But Democrats don't want to hear about it, because tax cuts are a Republican idea. Democrats are not interested in stimulating the economy so much as they are interested in securing their majority. Obama's cultivation of Republican votes is merely an effort to give him cover and prevent Republicans from using this issue against Democrats in the upcoming 2010 elections.
Oh yes, 2010!
For those of you who don't know, in 2010, Congressional Democrats have to defend 84 seats in Republican districts that George Bush carried strongly in both the 2000 and 20004 elections. These are very vulnerable seats. All Republicans need to do to get them back is prove that they are still Republicans!
If Obama succeeds in suckering Republicans into supporting this hog, they will have convinced the public unmistakably and finally of their worthlessness. They will have no issue to run on in 2010. Instead they will share blame for the stimulus package's certain failure, which should be readily apparent by then.
Squandering money on a vast array of government spending projects does nothing more than extend the hand of government further into our pockets. It has not worked in the past and won't work now. But Democrats are relying on public ignorance and Republican stupidity to pull of this heist.
In the House Republicans' meeting with Obama on January 27th, Maryland's sole Republican Congressman, Roscoe Bartlett, said it best:
"Mr. President, I probably come at this from a slightly different perspective. I remember when FDR beat Hoover in 1932. So I remember the Great Depression very well. I don't remember any of the many government programs affecting the course of the Depression. Government programs didn't work then; I don't know why we think they would work now. Mr. President, I think our obsessive borrowing has fully mortgaged my kids and my grandkids. Now we're working on mortgaging my two great-grandkids. Mr. President, I think it's more than a little bit selfish to try to solve our economic problems which we created by burdening future generations yet to be born
