GOP Puts Partisanship Above National Recovery
All House of Representatives GOP members voted against the stimulus bill despite President Barack Obama's efforts to put a bi-partisan stamp on the measure.
He met with House Republicans, adopted some of their proposals, but in the end, the GOP preferred to stand on the sidelines, hoping to be able to say "I told you so" if the program stumbles or fails.
So the GOP prefers failure - - taking their cues from new party leader and loudmouth Rush Limbaugh - - rather than positively participating in national economic success or stabilization that might bring with it fewer off-year election gains in 2010.
These Republicans stood with President Bush as he promoted tax cuts at the upper end of the spectrum, rewarded special interests, deleted protective regulations and enabled the Wall Street collapse.
No wonder the GOP wants failure now. It's what they understand best, so their status as a dwindling, fringe regional party will continue to feel familiar.
5 comments:
PARTISANSHIP AND (old) PROPAGANDA
Posted by my narrowly re-elected Repub. State Representative at 8:07 PM last evening through his office email to constituents, we got the message that minority oversight of the stimulus money at the state level is of absolute necessity for successful state economic recovery.
State of the State
Good Evening from the State Capitol in Madison. Tonight was the annual State of the State Address by Governor Doyle. As you can imagine, this address was the bleakest of any during the last 7 years of his administration.
It is indeed troubled times the state is facing. The condition of the economy and state budget is dire. But I remain confident that working together, we will elevate the state back to prosperity.
The key to getting the state back on track is getting the hard-working people of Wisconsin back on the job. We need stimulate the state economy to create jobs. We need to balance the budget and reduce unnecessary spending so that we can once again have a state government that lives within its means. Tonight the governor said that “what isn’t needed will be cut.” This is exactly right. We need to make sure we do not balance the budget on the taxpayers’ back. It is never a good time to raise taxes and when people are struggling to pay rent or their mortgage, the last thing they need are more taxes.
We need to make sure we are responsible with the federal stimulus money. This stimulus money is not for pork projects. We need to use this money to address critical needs in the state’s budget, not prop up structural deficiencies. This stimulus money needs to be used to create new jobs in a state and local economy that has lost entirely too many. I think getting people back to work must be the cornerstone of our efforts.
The federal stimulus money will be welcome and very useful to Wisconsin. But we need to make sure that it is spent correctly and that we know where it is spent. This week, legislation was introduced to the Assembly, which I co-authored, establishing a new Joint Legislative Committee that will have oversight of the federal stimulus money. This Committee, which will consist of 6 Democrats and 4 Republicans, will hold public hearings and issue reports on legislation that involves the spending of federal stimulus monies. There needs to be legislative oversight of the federal stimulus money, it is after all, taxpayer dollars.
Wisconsin like the rest of the country is facing a difficult road ahead. But the challenges we face we can overcome. We can, and we will act to set our great state on the road to recovery.
I included the above message to let others have a view of one Republican State Rep's thoughts on the state of the state. Aside from balanced budget and no new taxes rhetoric in the above message, it is interesting to note that my State Rep claims credit for co-authorship of a bill that Scot Ross points out this morning, is legislation that the minority party has no authority to introduce.
http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/page/community/post/scotross/CHxY
Come on Jim, I know you are smarter than this. Have you read the bill? $200 million to clean up Washington Mall, $75 million for smoking cessions, $400 million for global warming research? What do each of these have to do with stimilating the economy.
The tax cut, is not a cut, but a refundable credit which would go to individuals who have paid NO federal income taxes.
The best way to stimulate the economy is to provide incentive for business to hire and people to spend. Very little in the Democratic plan offers anything. Even the infrastructure spending would do little in the short-term.
The Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan group stated that this package would help the econom y very little.
You write of bi-partisan, Nancy Pelosi allowed no Republican amendements to the bill and were not allowed to help write it, so where is the bi-partisian ship on the part of house democrats? If this plan was so great, why should you even care that not one house Republican supported it and 11 democrats did not either. I would hate to be one of the Blue-Dog democrats who ran on fiscal conservatism, because this bill was a liberal agenda.
So please do not lecture on the bi-partisian, because this was not it. The Democrats should spend less time worrying about Rush, and actually tell the public what is in the plan. Oh, if they do that, the people would be against it.
To Anonymous: I believe some of the items you cite specifically have been dropped.
No doube politics crept into the bill and into the definition of what provides stimulus to the economy, but I see a combination of short and long-term investments that will provide employment, fix infrastructure of all kinds and get money into people and businesses' pockets.
Well Jim, I guess you know more than the CBO, because they do not agree with you.
That's because it was a partisan dem bill that won't do anything to stimuate the economy...i hope they GOPers don't vote for it because they WILL be able to say "i told you so"
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