The Nero-Cons Ride Again

This week we have seen the wrangling over the stimulus package as the Republicans have tried to assert some control over how the money will be spent. We have seen the Democrats cutting money out of the bill, primarily for education, in order to get some Republican support for the bill in the senate. The breakdown is:

· $3.5 billion would be cut for work on higher education facilities.
· All $16 billion from the original bill for K-12 school construction.
· More than $1 billion from Head Start.
· $40 billion from a $79 billion proposal to help states pay education costs while trying to balance their own budgets.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), involved in the negotiations with Susan Collins (R-ME) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), said the cuts were necessary because “the Republicans have an aversion to spending on education.” I know I certainly wonder why the Republicans are so worried about "generational theft," what John McCain describes as “a transfer of wealth from future generations to today's leaders,” but aren’t worried that future generations might not be adequately educated and able to meet the challenges of the future. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) responded: "Fighting a war without paying for it. Letting the banks be run like casinos on their own account, is that theft? You're damn right is is."
John Boehner (R-OH) said on “Meet the Press” that the Republicans didn’t want to be “the party of ‘No’ but the party of better ideas and better solutions.” When asked for specifics, he said “he’ll get back to us over the coming months.” Eric Cantor (R-VA), echoed the same talking point, saying that the Republicans "will not be the party of ‘No’ but will someday offer solutions and alternatives.” Shades of Sarah Palin. This is the Republicans still fighting against F.D.R’s New Deal. They were partially successful then in slowing spending intended to lift us out of the Republican Great Depression , which slowed the recovery. They are worried that if Pres. Obama is successful in reversing the economic collapse brought on by thirty years of Regonomics, (and eight years of Bush & Co. raiding the Treasury) they will again become irrelevant for a generation.
The most recent example of how bad things are in the real world was President Obama’s visit to Elkhart, IN. on Monday. Unemployment in the Elkhart-Goshen, area was 15.3 percent in January, the same month we saw more than a half-million jobs disappear nationwide. Elkhart resident Yvonne Sell said, "Here in Elkhart, I've never seen things as bad as they are. When you open the newspaper, unless you want to be a topless dancer, there's nothing." Robert Dunlop, president of J.A. Wagner Construction in Elkhart observed: "Unfortunately, when you drop a ton of money to pay billion-dollar bonuses on the East Coast, it kind of sucks on the Midwest, If banks can free up a little bit of credit so that people can buy products and get people back to work, that would be good for this area."
Had the financial sector actually used the money they received prior to the election to make credit available, many businesses would not have been stuck between the rock of bankruptcy and the hard spot of lay-offs. The Republicans, who have positioned themselves as champions of overseas outsourcing, keep insisting tax cuts will solve everything. They don’t seem to understand that you have to have a job in order to benefit from a tax cut. Without a job, people spend less, and the economy as a whole slows down. How much we are spending keeps dropping. What are Americans still buying? According to Frank Rich of the New York Times, we are still buying “Big Macs, Campbell’s soup, Hershey’s chocolate and Spam — the four food groups of the apocalypse.”