I'm sorry, but what part of a Democrat-controlled Congress just screams "Repugs get whatever they want!" Sorry GOP, you can't win this time around.

Still with the tax cuts eh? It's getting mighty tiresome to hear the same old song sung about tax cuts.

Tax cuts (even middle and lower class ones) do not work when consumer confidence is at near historic lows. All it does is hamstring government now and down the road.

Why are we even discussing this with them? Why?

Force the fuckers to actually fillibuster -- to stand there and read phonebooks while people lose their jobs. See how that goes over.

Spending, spending, spending - the only seemingly used word in the Republican's efforts to sabotage President Obama's economic stimulus package.

Well, Honorable Senators of Republican persuasion, get off your asses and pass a viable recovery package post haste, or your political retirement will come to you in the next election cycle.

I am not alone in saying I am tired of Republican hyjinx! Anyone making over $200,000 annually is not struggling as much as the middle or lower classes here in America, so all of our elected officials can only imagine the struggles we are going through. OK, here's what should happen:

Since the economic stimulus is going to get bogged down, have our beloved Senators work for starvation wages until they pass a bill that will do more than simply give more to the rich as the rest of us get screwed!

Each Senator should be housed with a guest family that has two full-time employed parents earning less than $75,000 annually, and at least two children. Each Senator should become involved in the early morning getting-ready routine, give the children lunches or lunch money, get them off to school, and then go to work with the same money in his/her pocket as the father or mother of the guest family (none of this per deim allowance of well over $200 tax free!).

Let's see how long our honorable senators will take to pass a package when they see first hand the misery we are suffering because of too many tax breaks for the rich, too many de-regulated industries imploding because of greed, and too many war expenditures on Iraq - the war that we were lied into!

Yes, Senate Repulicans, we are tired of the last 8 years, and if you can't change your stripes, you will not be invited back to elected office! -Kevo

McConnell of course remembers that massive tax cuts were a major plank in his party's platform in the last presidential election. But apparently he's forgetting that his party lost.

Tax cuts are fine if the right people benefit.

But the obscene tax cuts of the early Bush years led directly to the derivative sub-prime lending scam which created the housing bubble.

I wish, for once, people would talk about the impact of tax cuts.

The Iraq War is basically a massive scam as well. Very little return on tax dollars. (except for death and injuries)

Who cares what the repugnacans think. They F**ked up already. Why in the hell would anyone let 'em do it agin?

I mean, come on folks.

The Senate Republican Caucus is a nickle holding up a dollar.

Still with the tax cuts eh? It's getting mighty tiresome to hear the same old song sung about tax cuts.

And what measurable impact did Bush's tax cuts have on the economy, given that Ayn Rand Greenspan was keeping interest rates at historic lows for years, creating the illusion of prosperity but also helping spark the housing bubble?

Obama is at 67% approval from the new Gallup Poll and is wise, I think, to give the wingnuts enough rope yapping about how great their ideas are and how bad are those in this bill. This is their last ideological spasm and everyone knows their ideas have failed. Like Obama said to Lauer yesterday, the important thing is that it gets passed. I don't think he really cares about getting a lot of GOP votes. He only needs one or two and all the bluster by wingnuts will be forgotten. But if they do manage to force all 41 gop senaters to filibuster, then Obama will grab the Bully Pulpit and blow them out of the water. There are at least a few goopers smart enough to see that reality in the end, I think.

What I'd love is for Obama to address the American Public directly and say "we have a stimulus package that the Republican Party - the Party in power predominately during the period where all these problems took root - does not like. They're threatening to filibuster unless the highest-up of the upper class get yet more tax breaks. So I'm asking the majority to party to LET THEM FILIBUSTER. Let them defend their arguments, on C-Span, where the entire nation can get the opportunity to see them and hear them make their case. Who knows, they might even make some good points. But they'll have to. Because the filibuster is going to go until they either give up or change enough minds to kill the bill."

It's not enough to give 'em enough rope. Time for the Dems to set the rope up, put their necks in the nooses and give them a stool to stand on. Let them make a case and either commit political suicide or argue well enough to grant their careers a stay of execution. Time for the GOP to prove the size of their balls. Cuz, I suspect, if push EVER comes to shove, it'll be shown that we've got the biggest balls of them all.

Are the R's F***ing crazy? Tax cuts for business when it has been reported many of our largest corporations pay no taxes; Citi or B of A or GM or Ford aren't going to be paying at 35 or 25 or 50 percent!

And, no one except at Washington think tanks has been hired on the basis of a tax cut. Real businesses hire on the basis of demand for the goods or services they provide.

Business tax break rarely create demand, they merely reward a business for doing something they would have done anyway.

F***ing R's.

If the R's were serious, they would simply change the size of the 10 per cent bracket on the tax tables from $ 7,825 (2007) to say $15,000. Tax cut for every single person who files a 1040. And it will trickle up.

Republicans remind me of a guy who finds himself in a foreign country, but doesn't speak the language and only knows a phrase or two. But instead of "no habla" they only know how to say "tax cuts."

Same old Repub play book-

Make mountains out of mole hills.

They avoid dealing with facts and reality with distractions for the MSM to play .

Cheap sound bites are their stock in trade. Distract and confuse their strategy.

$5 Billion is a lot but
Where was this concern over the first $350 Bill in bank bailout money?
Where was their concern over that $8 Billion in lost cash early in the Iraq war and the supplementals of $100+ Billion of the past few years?
Or the $500+ Billion each year for the Pentagon after even the Bush admin admitted to being unable to account for over $1 Trillion in spending?

Lots of molehills and distractions for the MSM and the voters so Repubs can avoid facts and accountability.

I don't know why any of you guys think the Republicans are crazy. All of this obstructionism and they're getting more concessions and possibly another cabinet position.

Oh, but we've got to chill. Obama undoubtedly has a plan. Or so I'm told.

Just about every serious economist in the world believes that tax cuts are the least productive stimulus you can provide, while infrastructure spending provides the biggest bang for the buck, so what do the GOP Senators want to do? Increase the tax breaks by 155 billion and decrease the infrastructure spending by about 200 billion. I guess they are all fans of Rush Limbaugh and take their marching orders from the great gas bag. They seem to be doing whatever they can to sink the stimulus package. I suppose that the bulk of the 155 billion in tax cuts will go to their base, the multibillionaires of America. But the cut in aid to the states, for infrastucture improvements, won't go over well with cash strapped Governors, no matter what polical party. That is one of the good things about the balanced budget provisions of many state constitutions, the executives can't ignore massive deficits on their party's watch and suddenly become fiscal conservatives when the other party is in power. They have to face those deficits squarely and make the hard choices. Without Obama's promised infrastructure spending a lot of GOP governors are going to be screwed. Obama ought to tell Palin to take a hike over a bridge to nowhere.

Oh, but we've got to chill. Obama undoubtedly has a plan. Or so I'm told.

Doubtful - Can you honestly be so dense as to assume Obama doesn't have a plan?! You can think it's a dumb plan, but it's obvious he's got one. Seriously, I have no trouble believing that Obama's critics are intelligent, but please give me something to work with, people. And the first thing is to stop making stupid assumptions.

And the real problem here is that Obama's working with a plan that you clearly don't understand, so you assume he can't possibly have one. That's entirely illogical. Last year's campaign wasn't done on a "Win the News Cycle" hail mary luckfest. His campaign developed a strategy and executed it almost flawlessly. And from this poor schmoe's seat, he appears to be doing the same thing now. He's had since November to work on this and it sure looks like a plan to me. And we keep explaining the plan to you, but you guys STILL insist on imagining that one doesn't exist. That's just illogical.

Again, disagree with the strategy, but stop assuming it doesn't exist. It's not only an insult to Obama's intelligence, but to your own.

This isn't really on topic, but is anyone else having trouble not getting pre-emptively angry every time they see a phrase like "The White House added some details to this..." OH I'LL BET THEY DID THOSE SLEAZY MOTHERF... oh wait, never mind.

Obama won the election, Congress is run by Democrats, the stimulus bill is going to be mostly what the Democrats want. George Bush is NOT president. McConnell has to get used to those facts.

Can you honestly be so dense as to assume Obama doesn't have a plan?! -Doctor Biobrain

I think you've been reading my comments long enough to know there is no end to how dense I can be. :)

Seriously, though, you can't tell me that Senator Gregg was a part of Obama's plan, and if it is, it really seems like they're making it up as they go along.

And the concessions on the stimulus? If it was their plan to cobble together an ineffective bill full of concessions to a disgruntled pack of obstructionists and the blue dogs demanding their pork or else, then frankly I'd rather believe they were making it up as they went along because if that's their plan, it sucks.

I'd love nothing more than to eat my words, but I just don't see it. Two tax cheats, one of which is a huge lobbyist the other of which sat on his hands while the world economy collapsed around him, and they're in charge of fixing health care and the economy?

Sorry, but I don't value bipartisanship above effectiveness and I'm tired of giving the Republicans concessions just to give the illusion of some sort of cooperation.

I'm just too much of a cynic to accept it on faith, and there just wasn't much to be happy about today as a Democrat or an American.

Doubtful - These cabinet people aren't the ones tasked with saving the world. These are the people who will be selling the plans to Congress, the media, and America. The people who will be saving the world are the experts who work under these guys. Now with Bush gone, the experts will be allowed to do their jobs and I think I'll trust in the experts.

As for Gregg, it's to be remembered that Richardson was the plan. But that fell through for obvious reasons that I actually can't recall off-hand (though I remember they were big). But all the same, Obama seems to believe that having Gregg is a good idea and we lose nothing in the Senate by doing it. After all, this can only be counted as a loss if you assume that Gregg would be replaced by a Dem. But as it is, there's no gain or loss.

And overall, Obama has shown himself to be a totally awesome judge of character. If he thinks Gregg is the guy needed to sell his policies, I'll trust his judgment on that. After all, I know zip about Gregg, while Obama's people have researched him endlessly. And I don't say zip when I don't know zip.

Who you gonna believe, Biobrain or your lyin' eyes?

Yes, to ordinary mortals it may appear that Obama is off to a very shaky start ("aided" by the remarkably pitiful messaging performance of the congressional Dem leadership) and has allowed the Republicans and their MSM mouthpieces to frame the stimulus bill as pork-barrel spending in a way that will seriously constrain his options for the rest of his term. But don't worry, because Biobrain can see Obama's sooperseekrit plan with his X-ray vision!

And he thinks people who can actually see what's going on are the ones who are dense. That's rich.

Just like Obama let them frame him as a too black, not black enough, America hating foreign Arab terrorist communist?

Some may have missed that part in 1998 and now in 2008 where people's opinions aren't driven by cable news networks.

And by the way, Republicans have about zero credibility right now, especially with fiscal conservatives. Any media figure that is following them right now is throwing their credibility away right now.

The may have zero credibility with YOU, but there are a lot of ill-informed people out there, many of whom have the stimulus and the bank bailout completely confused. And in large numbers they are calling their Congresscritters and Senators to oppose the stimulus. You're vastly underestimating the pushback against this thing, and Democratic messaging in favor of it has been (to be charitable) extremely poor.

I desperately wish that you were right and that we'll have smooth sailing here. But that's not what's happening. I do think something will pass, but the something is likely to have less spending and more tax cuts than it should, and thus to be dubiously effective. And the Democrats will own the economy in 2010, whether you or I think that's fair or not. Voters have notoriously short memories.

Boronx: Republicans have about zero credibility right now, especially with fiscal conservatives.

exactly..

GOP 2009: tax cuts & de-regulation got here..WHY STOP NOW?

Boronx: Republicans have about zero credibility right now, especially with fiscal conservatives.

remember...

the last time republicans were responsible for passing a budget (2005 spending plan)..

it had the 2nd highest budget deficit ever...

and it was stuffed with a record 14,000 earmarks worth 27-billion dollars...

(according to Citizens Against Government Waste)....

...

now they were also supposed to pass a budget in 2006...but they ended up NOT PASSING..

9 of 11 appropriations bills..

they dumped all that work on the new dem congress in jan 2007...

that is the most recent gop fiscally responsible track record..

lol...