Fiscal conservatism? Are you kidding me?

Welcome to today’s posting of “The Left Wing Liberal Show”. Republicans in the House Wednesday put up a big goose egg for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan (ARRP), after saying that it included too much spending. Complaints including that it would add to much money to the national debt, that it would increase the deficit, are you kidding me? Can anyone say hypocrites? Over the past eight years, especially the first six – in which they were the majority, “rubber stamp Congress” – this country shifted from a $200 billion surplus, from the Clinton Administration, to a $1.2 trillion deficit! From giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, to authorizing $10 billion a month in Iraq, the Republicans have been anything but fiscally conservative.

Now they try to say they want to be fiscally conservative to try to fix the problem they caused, when now is the time for big spending, to surge the economy, to put people back to work, and to fix our infrastructure. This can not be fixed with tax cuts as they try to say. As I said in yesterday’s post, tax cuts are way too variable to be reliable.

This is Bipartisanship?

Yesterday the House minority leader, on the topic of Wednesday’s ARRP passage vote, sent a memo to House Republicans praising their success in failing to stop the bill from passing (sorry if that confused you). In the memo Rep. Boehner says, by not voting for passage we, “… made good on our pledge that Republicans will not simply be the party of ‘opposition,’ but the party of better solutions.” Well, that Republican dream world makes yet another appearance! Since a Republicans IQ may not be high enough to interpret what I mean, I will spell it out for you. The Democrats have a majority, so, if all of the minority members don’t vote for something sponsored by Democrats, you are therefore opposing it, therefore being the party of… come on I know you can do it!

Also, in this same memo, Boehner stated, “The vote last night sent a clear, powerful, and bipartisan message…” (now imagine me staring blankly in silence, blinking rapidly). I think I must also explain to the Republicans what bipartisanship means. Bipartisanship is when two parties work together for the greater good of the country, and not just to look good politically. Again, no Republican member of the House voted for this bill, which is for the greater good of the entire country. Therefore, they were not working together with the Democrats, even after the Democrats made huge concessions on the bill to appeal to the Republicans, and were not working in a bipartisan manner. If this is the Republicans idea of bipartisanship, I would hate to see what their idea of partisanship is.

Do Democrats still give the Republicans what they want?

As Republicans do their victory lap over their so called, “acts of bipartisanship,” the Democrats have some thinking to do. Over the past week or two, Democrats have made concessions on this bill, in an act or real bipartisanship, in order to please Republicans. How did the Republicans thank them? By giving zero votes to the bill. So, my question is, what do Democrats do about it? As Rachel Maddow said on The Rachel Maddow Show last night “Hell hath no fury like a majority party scorned.”

Now, I ask, should democrats take some of the concessions they gave Republicans out of the bill? It is their prerogative as the majority party. Just to receive Republican support, Democrats took out very good infrastructure and other spending programs, including some that caught my attention. Republicans dubbed it spending for “contraceptives,” but if they may have actually read the bill, they would have realized that it was funding for programs that taught lower income families forms of family planning, which may have included contraceptive devices. This really makes sense. Think about it, give these lower income families knowledge of contraceptives and that is less children born into the lower income families, it is simple math. Therefore, we save money, because this is less strain on Medicaid and SCHIP funds, freeing some up, so we can begin to insure more of the millions of other children that are without health insurance in this country. This also frees up the Welfare system, and begins to build a stronger foundation for these programs to rest upon. Republicans need to grow up and accept the fact that they are the minority party. Lets hope that Senate Republicans actually understand the bill, before saying no.

Removing some of the concessions from the bill could make it stronger bill and a better working bill. This is not just a question I asked, It also one echoed on the House floor. In The Huffington Post yesterday, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi said, “That’s what my members ask me. It wasn’t something that was suggested. It was a heavy lift for our members [to make the concessions], but they understood that it has a benefit and were willing to support it.”

The House Republicans may have done the Democrats a favor, they can now take back these concessions and not be committing political suicide at the same time. They can remove these ill-advised tax cuts and reinsert infrastructure spending, making it a new and improved stimulus bill that is good politics and good policy.

Thank you, God bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.