First, a bit of recap from today. Though about 90% of the amendments offered to this bill were ignored, a handful were debated. A couple of the notable ones were:
Democrats Vote to Discriminate Against Students of Faith
- the issue: Stimulus bans universities and colleges from using funds to renovate buildings where students engage in “religious worship”
- the vote: 43-54 against, amendment failed
- the result: Congress voted to discriminate against religious colleges
- note: two Reps voted no (Snowe and Collins, two of the worse RINOs), four Dems voted yes
Mortgage Entitlement
- the issue: providing government-backed, 4% fixed mortgages to any credit-worthy borrower
- the vote: 35-62 against, amendment failed
- the result: it is actually very good that this failed, since this measure would have caused artificial inflation of mortgage prices; that's the thing that got us into this mess in the first place!
- note: despite some great signs of life recently, there is still a major problem in the GOP since much of the leadership supported this
Some quick notes on other Rep amendments that the Dems voted down:
Basically, if it had an 'R' next to it, they voted it down. Now that's bipartisanship!An amendment by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) to cut $47 billion in wasteful spending.
An amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) cut corporate and individual income taxes and repeal the AMT.
An amendment by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) to require funding for all projects in the bill occur within one year.
An amendment by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to require spending cuts and a move to a balanced budget once the economy recovers.
An amendment by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to cut $5.2 billion in pet projects and replace it with the same amount of defense spending.
An amendment by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) to cut the tax rate for the lowest tax bracket in half.
An amendment by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) to repeal the 1993 Social Security tax increase.
And, a McCain amendment to strike the “Buy American” provision from the bill.
So, let's get down to some analysis of today's events. First, we start of with yet another example of that tremendous Obama bipartisanship:
Obama said with a touch of indignance that he "read the other day that critics of this plan ridiculed our notion that we should use part of the money to modernize the entire fleet of federal vehicles to take advantage of state of the art fuel efficiency. This is what they call pork. You know the truth. It will not only save the government significant money over time, it will not only create manufacturing jobs for folks who are making these cars, it will set a standard for private industry to match. And so when you hear these attacks deriding something of such obvious importance as this, you have to ask yourself — are these folks serious?Nice. Still, if we look past the childish snippiness, is he right in what he says? Stephen Spruiell has the dish:
Sooo-eey! Yes, we're dead serious about the excessive pork in here. Too bad you're not.The line item in question would allocate $600 million to the General Services Administration for the acquisition of motor vehicles, "including plug-in and alternative fuel vehicles."
One supposes that the additional money is needed because there are no savings to be found in the program's current budget, right? Well, the AP looked into that last summer:
Americans love their cars, and so apparently does Uncle Sam—who's got 642,233 of them.
Operating those vehicles—maintenance, leases and fuel—cost taxpayers a whopping $3.4 billion last year, according to General Services Administration data obtained and analyzed by The Associated Press.
While Cabinet and other officials say they need the vehicles to do their jobs, watchdogs say mismanagement of the government fleet is costing millions of dollars a year in wasteful spending.
For example:
At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, fuel consumption and inventory are down, yet overall costs have increased significantly. Officials there can't figure out why.
The Interior Department was told by its own watchdog that it should cut its inventory, but it's added hundreds of vehicles.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has some cars that are barely driven. One just disappeared. [...]
Saving taxpayer dollars should be a priority, says Washington-based Citizens Against Government Waste.
"From a management standpoint, this is something that can easily be handled," said Tom Schatz, president of the group. "It's critical use or necessary use versus 'well, we've got the money, let's go out and buy some more cars.'" [emp. added]
So... we've got costs going up for no reason, agencies buying cars they don't need, cars disappearing at random — and no way to trim that $3.4 billion budget.
Is Obama serious?
Ace of Spades points out another glaring inconsistency:
Last October, while campaigning in Toledo, Barack Obama called for "a new ethic of responsibility." The nation's economic troubles, he said, occurred partly because "everyone was living beyond their means," including politicians who "spent money they didn't have." In his inaugural address last month, Obama regretted "our collective failure to make hard choices" and heralded "a new era of responsibility."That's an excellent point!Now President Obama, as one of his first priorities, is pushing a gargantuan "stimulus" plan that will add around $1 trillion to the national debt and cannot possibly work as advertised. Welcome to the new era of responsibility.
Anyway, while Senators are still working behind closed doors to come up with an alternative plan that both sides can agree on, Mary Katharine Ham references a new CBS poll that offers some advice on what such a plan should look like:
- 81 percent of the American public believes the bill should be a bipartisan effort, and only 13 percent believe it's okay to pass it with only Democratic supportI find it interesting that 59% say we should have tax cuts. Remember those battleground polls that consistently show about 60% of America lives like a conservative? Hmmm...
- Asked whether higher government spending or tax cuts for business would be more effective in ending the recession, 59 percent choose the tax cuts. Just 22 percent prefer more government spending
Anyway, now that we've pushed the fight back another day, Powerline suggests that this isn't going to make things any easier on the Dems:
[N]either Barack Obama nor any other Democrat has even tried to explain why the Dems' pork-fest, which appropriates hundreds of billions of dollars years in the future, needs to be rushed through the Senate in the dead of night as an "emergency." The real reason, of course, is that Obama and the Democrats know that public support for the bill is drying up as more people learn the facts about what is in it. Hence the rush to get the bill passed.So, the longer it takes to pass, the worse it looks for those who support it since they'll have to go on record supporting it twice.The Dems have a real problem, however, in that no matter what the Senate does, the process has a ways to go. The House and Senate bills are different (and probably will become more different still), so a conference committee will have to reconcile them. That can't be done overnight. The final bill will then have to pass both chambers, so Representatives and Senators will have to go on record once more.
I don't know how long that will take, but the Dems don't have much time: as we noted here, public support for the pork bill has dropped by a net seventeen points in just two weeks. That can fairly be described as "free-fall." In another week, when the Democrats have to vote again, the bill will be distinctly unpopular, assuming the Republicans keep up their criticisms and continue to propose much better alternatives.
The ultimate problem with this bill, of course, is that it is just about as bad as a bill can possibly be. No amount of begging, pleading, cajoling, or persuading can get people on board with this. The only thing that will get this dog through the process is lying, deceit, and as big a lack of transparency as possible. Exactly what they're doing, in other words. One wonders if the Dems will give in and let this drop, shooting instead for smaller, incremental bites that people aren't as likely to get mad about (and that Reps aren't as likely to quibble over, either). We'll find out soon enough, I guess.
Rich Lowry puts forward an interesting thought about the longer term ramifications if this bill fails:
Obama has missed a huge opportunity to triangulate against the liberal Congress and position himself firmly to the center. When the House produced its monstrosity, he could have said, as the reaction against it built, that the American people hadn’t elected him to shepherd that kind of partisan, old-style bill to passage. Yes, he could have said, it might seem strange for me to come out against a bill my own party crafted, but it's a new day in Washington and the responsibility era extends to Capitol Hill too. He could have taken out the longer-term spending, thrown in some more tax cuts, and probably co-opted a slice of Republicans without reducing the overall price tag that drastically.Yes, but Obama doesn't really believe in all that new day changey crap. It was just a campaign slogan that sounded great when delivered properly. Now that the rubber meets the road, it's evaporated.
If this bill does fail -- and it could still go either way -- I think it would signal two critically important things. First, it would be a nasty black eye for Obama's self-promoted mandate from the voters (i.e. 'I won, so I'm going to trump you on that'), and it would be a huge moral and psychological defeat for the liberals and Leftists who've been orgying non-stop since January 20th. Secondly, it would signal a profound change in the GOP, which has floundered without its conservative roots and base; to win this big of a battle this early in a new administration is enormous, and would provide a desperately-needed hope for the future of conservative Republicanism.
Time will tell...but first, we have to make sure this thing dies permanently. So, I promised you an alternative bill that would actually accomplish what the Democrats only talk about. Here you go...it's very simple:
1) Diffuse the 2011 tax bomb: Stop tax increases set to hit the economy in 2011.As you can see, it's all about less government, and putting more money back into the pockets of you and me. Now, get a load of these projected results (emphasis mine):
- Permanently repeal the alternative minimum tax once and for all;
- Permanently keep the capital gains and dividends taxes at 15 percent;
- Permanently kill the Death Tax for estates under $5 million, and cut the tax rate to 15 percent for those above;
- Permanently extend the $1,000-per-child tax credit;
- Permanently repeal the marriage tax penalty;
- Permanently simplify itemized deductions to include only home mortgage interest and charitable contributions.
2) Long term, broad based tax cuts for American families and businesses.
- Lower top marginal income rates – the one paid by most of the small businesses that create new jobs – from 35 percent to 25 percent.
- Simplify the tax code to include only two other brackets, 15 and 10 percent.
- Lower corporate tax rate as well, from 35 percent to 25 percent. The U.S. corporate tax rate is second highest among all industrialized nations, driving investment and jobs overseas. Lowering this key rate will unlock trillions of dollars to be invested in America instead of abroad.
- This is not only good economic policy, but a matter of fairness. No American family should be forced to pay the federal government more than 25 percent of the fruits of their hard labor.
JOBSIsn't the idea of a 'stimulus' package to jolt the economy back into the black as quickly as possible? And isn't the idea of a recovery package to re-establish long-term growth? Obama's plan is supposed to create or save 3-4 million jobs (though it lacks details on exactly how it would do so) at the cost of $1.2 trillion. DeMint's plan would provide several times more jobs and lay the groundwork for immense future growth in the same amount of time and for half the cost.
- Nearly 500,000 new jobs created in 2009, and 1.3 million more in 2010
- A total of 7.5 million by 2013, in just 5 years.
- Nearly 18 million jobs created over the next 10 years.
HOUSING
- Residential housing investment would increase by $96 billion over 3 years, and $175 billion over 5 years. Commercial real estate activity would increase $120 billion over 3 years, and $362 billion over 5 years.
- $537 billion in new real estate and construction activity over 5 years.
- Lower interest rates – reducing taxes on capital increases the supply of money invested and lent, reducing the cost of borrowing.
AUTO INDUSTRY
- Between 2009 and 2011, total sales of new automobiles and light trucks would be $24.5 billion higher than they would otherwise be.
So, there you go. Start dialing...
There's my two cents.
Related Reading:
A Jobs Plan That Will Work
DeMint Unveils Plan
House GOP Economic Recovery Plan
Sources:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjdkYjVjYjIwNjMxZWI3YTViN2U3YjU3ZWRhYmMzMGM
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/05/ensignmcconnell-mortgage-entitlement-fails-35-62/
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/05/demint-amendment-to-ban-religious-discrimination-in-stimulus-funding-fails-43-54/
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/05/message-to-senate-gop-stop-propping-up-the-housing-market/
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmM0NzIxMTZiNjI4OTE2MzAxODA4MjA1MTczMjQ4MTQ
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/02/harry_hangs_it_up_for_the_nigh.asp
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/02/022754.php
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDliYWM5ZjQxNGU0NWFkNTg4ZmEyY2Y5Yzk1OWRiOTI
http://minx.cc/?post=282424
http://demint.senate.gov/public/_files/2009-02-02_DeMint_Jobs_Plan_Summary.pdf
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