caveat: politics.
the house and the senate have been drafting and debating a stimulus bill for a while now. it passed the house (twice) without a single republican vote. and it passed the senate with 3 republican votes. republicans are claiming that they oppose the bill because they oppose government spending.
er, uh, i mean, i might not be the brightest guy on the planet, but didn’t 8 years of gw bush and republican rule create the biggest federal government and the biggest federal deficit in the history of the country? i would appreciate the republican position if they genuinely believed in small government, but when they were in power they spent and spent and spent and ended up creating, as i said, the biggest federal government and the biggest federal deficit in history.
it’s hard to take republicans seriously when they talk about fiscal responsibility, as when they were in power they spent taxpayer money like a drunk diplomat in a strip club. it’s a shame, as the republicans are running the risk of being seen as needlessly partisan at a time when the president seems to be earnestly seeking bi-partisan solutions, and when the country is in dire need of economic stimulus. and some of the things that the republicans wanted included in the stimulus package, such as reduced dividend taxes and repealing the estate tax, almost exclusively benefit the wealthy. and maybe it’s irrelevant, but haven’t we spent well over a trillion dollars in iraq? so the republicans are saying that a trillion dollars can be happily spent in iraq but not in the united states?
i honestly hope that the republicans can figure out a way to provide a rational counterpart to the democratic majority, and that they don’t continue exercising knee-jerk and irrational partisanship.
moby