Enough republican senators(Collins, Snowe and Spector) have decided to back Obama's stimulus plan convinced by recent unemployment numbers and facing prospects of their own future unemployment based on Democratic wins in their home states the last two election cycles. However, the republican party as a whole seems to still be cn course for the cliff ex-president bush had his party's bus headed for at the end of last year's episode, as illustrated by McCain's comment in today's New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
"We want to stimulate the economy, not mortgage the future of our children and grandchildren by the kind of fiscally profligate spending embodied in this legislation," said Senator John McCain of Arizona, the defeated Republican presidential nominee, who has emerged as a chief opponent of the proposal.
Just a word here senator, Like the "fiscally profligate spending" endorsed by the previous administration and the last republican Congress? Where was your concern for fiscal conservatism throughout the years of the bush administration? The recent concern for "fiscal conservatism" by republicans sounds rather hollow when you look at their record. My concern is that the spending in this bill won't be enough.
Lawmakers said that by poring over the 736-page bill they had excised about $110 billion, bringing the total cost to about $780 billion — $40 billion less than the stimulus bill approved by the House last week. Because of consumer tax breaks and spending for health research that had been added in the Senate, the new total for the measure could be about $820 billion. But even the senators behind the compromise were uncertain of the number.
In addition to the large cut in state aid, the Senate agreement would cut nearly $20 billion proposed for school construction; $8 billion to refurbish federal buildings and make them more energy efficient; $1 billion for the early childhood program Head Start; and $2 billion from a plan to expand broadband data networks in rural and underserved areas.
The cuts seem to be in the type of programs that are needed immediately.
Future failed republican candidate Lindsay Graham also sounded the alarm about the bill.
Republicans were clearly irritated at the outcome and faulted those involved in working out the bargain. "When you say this was the best we could do, I disagree with you," Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on the floor. "This not remotely close to what we could have done if we had sat down in a true bipartisan fashion and found a better way."
Graham and the rest of the republicans were irritated that the legislation wasn't written their way, Tax cuts and deregulation, the very things that has helped lead us to this crisis in the first place.
The republican minority in both House and Senate are idealogically opposed to "stimulus spending" on education because while paying lip service to the value of education they fear an educated electorate with the capacity for critical thought and the ability to change their radio dials from the AM bandwith. Education is best left in the proper appropriations bills where it can be defeated in secrecy. Republican's greatest fear is that Obama's plan will succeed and that they will increasingly slide into irrelevancy along with Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. The course they seem to have mapped out is to obstruct at every step and in the event of the ultimate success of the plan to deny that it has succeeded exactly as is being done retrospectively to FDR's New Deal. For all of our sakes and the good of the whole country I hope for President Obama's success.