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Sunday 15 February 2009

Congress passed the economic stimulus bill, despite the Republicans’ many efforts to torpedo the bill. I am disgusted with the blatant partisanship demonstrated by the Republicans during this episode. There is absolutely no question that an economic stimulus is necessary, nor is there any question that the bulk of the stimulus must take the form of government spending. But the Republicans put all of their energies into cutting taxes. The Democratic majority, under pressure from the White House, compromised repeatedly; the final bill is 60% spending and 40% tax cuts, a pretty fair compromise considering the fact that the Republicans are in the minority. Moreover, I think that, in strictly economic terms, the bill has too much tax cut and not enough spending — and this seems to be the thinking of many economists. Yet the Republicans were obsessed with tax cuts and demanded more and more tax cuts and less and less spending. In the process, billions of dollars for education and infrastructure were cut out of the bill to satisfy the Republicans — and STILL they fought!… …Remember, these were the same Republicans who spent wildly during the Bush years. They spent $500 billion on prescription subsidies because that was a Republican bill. They spent a trillion dollars on the wars in the Middle East. They pushed through, with very little scrutiny, a bill to throw $700 billion at financial institutions to prop them up. Chris Crawford

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