Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Congress / Kotz / Politics Radio Ad Targets Jim Cooper on Stimulus Package
Posted by Pete Kotz on Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 1:15 PM
Obviously the left is hoping that wayward Democrats fall in line. Still, it's hard to blame Cooper and Republicans for their opposition. The original package was a Democratic wish list worthy of Tip O'Neill. Though calling it pork-filled was bogus -- how is assistance to higher ed pork? -- it's being sold as a jobs bill, not a cure-all for every social ill and lefty interest group. The opposition thus far has made it a better package.
Democrats rightly note the hypocrisy of Republicans' newfound fiscal responsibility. They haven't exactly lived up to their advertising. But Cooper comes by his restraint genuinely. It may piss the left off, but when you're about to launch yourself head-first into massive debt, you can hardly blame the guy for walking with trepidation.
Comments (4)
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Not sure I follow. How has "the oppositon thus far made it a better package?"
Senate bill is much worse than the house version, from a stimulus perspective, though it appears the conference committee has fixed much of that problem. Are you referring to the lower overall cost, regardless of effectiveness as job-creation bill? Is that your point? Are these really your values?
Republicans all supported a bill that was exclusively tax cuts, with disproportionate impact on businesses and upper bracket income earners (what else is new?). Higher overall cost with much less immediate stimulus or job-creation impact. Is that what you mean by the "opposition."
Really, this is a lazy post. You typically do much better. Or maybe I'm wrong. How should the bill have been written and why?
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I'm not really big on the tax cut thing, Everyman. This is the one-size-fits-all stuff Republicans always throw out, and it rarely seems to work. But the publicity raised by their opposition has forced Dems to slash the wish list to make it more palatable. (See stuff like the seeding of the national mall.) I'm not against spending money for things like this, or for the National Endowment of the Arts, etc. But when you start throwing in family planning funding and all that, you're just putting money into all the things that have been underfunded for years, rather than treating this like emergency money strictly reserved to address the emergency.
This bill is going to put us seriously in debt. And you know that in your own home, you only jump into that kind of debt if you absolutely have to. So I guess my point, however inarticulate, was that opposition like Cooper's or the Republicans has created bad pub for Democrats, forcing them to tighten up their game. That, to me, is a good thing.
I guess I still disagree with your premise. GOP opposition did not make for a better bill. Made for a worse bill (if your goal is short-term stimulus-- which it is-- in the face of a possibly catastrophic economic collapse.) The countered with nothing but more tax cuts, which would, in fact, have made things worse, both in the short and long terms. They are, indeed, one-trick ponies. (Obama, btw, included plenty of tax breaks,for various reasons, most of which h ad to do with getting Republicans on board, Didn't work.) Both our Senators supported those tax bills. I mean, Neo-Hooverites isn't a strong enough characterization. They are either charlatans or fools.
Cooper's opposition is a little different. Apparently, he voted no because there was some pork he didn't like. It's a litte uncertain because he was never pressed to be specific. That there was some fat in the house bill shouldn't be a surprise. But it was truly miniscule given the overall cost of the bill and the need and urgency of the stimulus.
Finally, yes, this stimulus package will add to the deficit (and ultimately to the national debt, a different concept)-- but no one is overly concerned about that right now. And they shouldn't be. Much bigger concern is that the stimulus package wasn't big enough to meet the needs of the economy, to stimulate aggreage demand, and provide the 3-4 million jobs that are the ultimate target.
The final bill may be adequate, but it didn't get better because of "opposition." It got worse.
All done. Thanks for the exchange.
