Wonkette
Barry. Enough of this. “The time for talk is over.” Well, then stop talking. Let Susan Collins and Ben Nelson and Jim Webb etc. have their $80-$100 billion in cuts, and pass the thing with 65 votes (MODEST UPDATE: or don’t, but explain!) And fire Harry Reid. These “we need to stop bickering and act now” speeches are irritating, nasty, and condescending. But you still look good in a suit! [YouTube, TPMDC]
unrelated or is it?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/raccoons-sneak.html
Gaze of Raccoons Sneak Onto White House Grounds- February 05, 2009 12:17 PM
The Jonas brothers are not the only cute ‘n cuddly ‘n unexpected guests spotted at the White House in recent days…
How pitiful, 44. Have you not learned anything from 43? Stop reading these “reports”. End of problem. Now, go clear some brush or something.
The thing is, the package is already too small (har har)
And if it fails to help, you know that they’ll be blaming Barry instead of Susan Collins and Ben Nelson.
Ugh. Have you seen what the wusses want to cut?! ED, State, EoE, Justice — but not Defense, not any of the tax cuts!!!! Great fucking compromise. Ossum.
Makes me want to binge on hobo beans and moonshine.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/Collins-Nelson-Cuts/?resultpage=1&
Hopey should show up at the NBA all-star game. Maybe enter the slam-dunk contest, to get the Nation’s mind off their problems.
The stimulus bickering is getting as bad Joe the __________.
Hey weenies! Show me the money!
jagorev: They want to cut $25 billion in aid to states for education? Well sure — ’cause if you can’t get a job, there’s no point in using that spare time going to school. Oh, and can we pleeeeease cut all federal assistance to Alaska, whose citizens get $1.81 in government money for every dollar they pay in taxes? ‘Cause their governor always talks about how they stand on their own two feet and rough it and shit.
So people don’t have to click over:
“Among the biggest cuts under discussion: $24.8 billion in state stabilization money for education, which was intended to plug existing budget holes; $15 billion in state incentive grants for education; and $1.4 billion for the National Science Foundation, which is wracked by a porn-viewership flap. Pell Grants were the biggest program to survive the debate over cuts, with $13.9 billion staying intact.”
I get to start drinking soon, so I’ll be okay, at least for the day.
leave hopey’s package alone!!
Larry Fine: Better yet, challenge to Repubs to some Hoops. If they lose, no fillibusters for at least the next four years. It’ll be like the Globe Trotters playing the Washington Generals. Also.
What’s the point of having 58 Senators when you’re as ineffective as when you had 45? If the Republicans ever had these kind of numbers in the Senate, they’d ban income tax for anyone making over $500,000, put Jesus on the dollar bill, and start at least two wars.
…and beat the fuck out of these Repubs. Also.
Less chat, more splat.
I’m just curious how many elections the Republicans have to lose before we stop letting them control the government. Two is obviously not the magic number.
Jim, Preznit Zenmaster looks good in a suit, but the old Bushsters are in a snit not over the economy, or foreign policy, but whether he wears his damn coat in the oval office. Actually I think they’re jealous because he actually looks like he’s working rather than play-acting the part.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/former-chief-of-staff-to-obama-put-your-jacket-on/
With all this talk about cutting his package, are they trying to convert Barry to Judaism?
Tra: I think Barry will realize he’s dealing with unreasonable blowhards before this four years is up. I mean…he’s gotta…right?
Yeah, let’s cut the shit out of science research, mass transit, and making sure states don’t half to lay off half their teachers. Great fucking idea. Thanks Christ for all the Sensible Centrists. God help us all!
To play Devil’s Advocate - if the purpose of the stimulus is to jump-start the economy with build-intensive projects that will employ people, education doesn’t really fit. Why don’t they set it aside and get it into legislation of its own? There’s no need to shove EVERYTHING into the bloody stimulus.
Colander: I hope he realizes it by close of business, Friday.
Dear Maine: Please never ever elect a lady Republican senator ever again. I know you’re a bunch of demi-Quebecois castrato mutes, but these maternal-phallic closet dykes you keep sending us are ruining the whole country. You owe us all an apology for Collins ‘n Snowe, plus while you’re at it one for Tailgunner Joe for that carpet-muncher Margaret Chase Smith.
AxmxZ: To play Devil’s Advocate - if the purpose of the stimulus is to jump-start the economy with build-intensive projects that will employ people, education doesn’t really fit.
That part isn’t “stimulus” so much as “making sure the bottom doesn’t fall the fuck out of state budgets.” Which might not be a step forward per se but it is making sure you’re not going six steps back.
Fear of a Black Reagan: States are already getting another 40 or so billion in aid.
Making cuts is hard.
Am I the only one who thinks that he’s getting his bi-partisan thing over early? He’s done everything they’ve asked, so the Repugs keep changing their demands. At some point (soon, I hope) I think the Hopey is going to hit the kill button on bi-partisan ship. After all, he’s warned them more than once: I won.
Will there be any stimulus left when these douches are finished with it? Maybe someone needs to make the congressional leaders plus Rahm and Joe watch a doc on how LBJ worked the senate.
So let these assholes filisbuster then do what the Repugs did–threaten to pull the plug on that damn thing. It worked for the fucking Republicans. I am so fed up with being the winner but being beaten by those right wing assholes every time.
Right, two winning elections and the WH isn’t enough to give the Dems some backbone. Trouble is, the third time may be the charm, but at this rate, there will be no third time.
DustBowlBlues: “Will there be any stimulus left when these douches are finished with it?”
Yes: defense spending and corporate tax cuts.
From what I see in NYT, the cuts that the “mods” are advocating come from:
the arts
cyber security
science
mass trans
climate research
Sound familiar?
Then, there’s this: “Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, praised Mr. Reid’s handling of the package.” Sheeesh.Colander: Unhappy hour comes earlier and earlier.
Financial Wizard Jim Demint wants these changes to the bill:
o Permanently repeal the alternative minimum tax once and for all;
o Permanently keep the capital gains and dividends taxes at 15 percent;
o Permanently kill the Death Tax for estates under $5 million, and cut the tax rate to 15 percent for those above;
o Permanently extend the $1,000-per-child tax credit;
o Permanently repeal the marriage tax penalty;
o Permanently simplify itemized deductions to include only home mortgage interest and charitable contributions.
o Lower top marginal income rates from 35 percent to 25 percent.
o Simplify the tax code to include only two other brackets, 15 and 10 percent.
o Lower corporate tax rate as well, from 35 percent to 25 percent.
This may stimulate purchases of Davidoff cigars, Hermes suits, and turbo Bentleys but I don’t see anything in this that would help me. Unless I become a cigar sommelier, valet, or gas station attendant.
chascates: OH SWEET you can get $1,000 for having a child and then spend $100,000 raising the little bastards. WUT A DEALSSS!!11!!
bitchincamaro: Mitch McVomit? Does that mean the Dems have already caved on everything but star wars and tax cuts for Nissan and Toyota?
I’ve been looking around the interwebs (actually, briefly scanning a huffpo essay by a who really did scan the blogtubes) and it turns out, it’s not just the wonkeratti who are tired of this shit. Wow. Does that mean we’re in the mainstream now?
On another thread, Layne explained the Repugs opposition to the Stimulation Act more clearly than anything else I’ve read–and did it with bitingly funny sarcasm. I told him he deserved a snark Pulitzer, but he never said thank you. I hope he read it. If you haven’t, go back to that thread. It got me so worked up, I wanted to hunt down Sen. Coburn and beat him senseless with a gigantic cross while I screamed, “The End Times Are Here–for YOU.”
As a matter of fact, that would be a fitting way to get rid of most of the Repugs.
Oh, shit. Does this mean HS is going to come and take me Guantanamo?
…if Barack Obama handled it this way, this shyt would be over by now!!! And we would all be driving around in our own pimped out Mexican chauffeured Cadillacs!
AngryBlakGuy: Niiiize.
AxmxZ: I’m not sure. Maybe because not all unemployed people are ’shovel ready’ so we need jobs created for the laid off indoor workers, too. Some of the newly unemployed might be qualified to work in education—-job training, etc.
Just a thought, but it doesn’t matter because all that’s going to be left after the great capitulation are corporate tax cuts. But never fear. All that wealth will trickle down again, just like Ronnie taught me it does.
chascates: BTW: 36 of 40 Repugs voted for the Demint changes you describe.
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/535677.aspx
The stimulus bill provides funds for renovation and repair of college infrastructure and buildings, but bars uses of the money for facilities used for “sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.”
Demint wants this language removed because it ”interferes with the free exercise of religion.” Watch the Dems cave.
DustBowlBlues: But if you don’t do things in a bipartisan way, David Broder cries.
chascates: I’m so pissed the Dems let the Repugs rename the estate tax. Well, I’ve got a name for it: The Death Lotto. Some of us are winners, some of us are losers, but mostly none of us should escape a tax burden for money that just came to us via someone else’s demise. No?
Okay, on to something we can all agree on, almost including Sen. Demento: I’d do away with deductions for anything and no credits for having kids or raising kids. What, are they an endangered species?
For every penny I deduct for charitable donations and my home mortgage, people who can afford tax attorneys walk away without paying a damn cent. I think everyone should pay what they owe, be they your humble okie or Bill Gates.
Hooray For Anything: “ut if you don’t do things in a bipartisan way, David Broder cries.”
That in itself is a reason to fuck the Republicans.
I will personally go to the afterworld and strangle the ghost of Reagan if it will stop this bullshit.
I got it! Hopey and the Dems, who won the election hugermongously, should just not give any money whatsoever to any Republican state, cause, project or person. The Republicans should refuse to accept any federal bucks forever more, in any form. That should trim the bill by at least $100 gazillion. The GOP losers can proudly tighten their belts in righteousness, then explain come election time how they let all their constiuents become hobo bean eaters.
Tra: I’m just curious how many elections the Republicans have to lose before we stop letting them control the government.
From your post to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ — I tend to harangue the interns who have to read these missives on a daily basis. I encourage everyone else to do so as well. Politely, of course.
chascates: WHY THE FUCK IS ANYONE LISTENING TO JIM DEMINT????
His party and its “ideas” were soundly rejected at the polls. He and his ilk should not even have a seat at the table. They should be waiting outside the room to be told what is in the bill and what is not. Then they can decide to vote for it or against it. All the while their next election opponent is taking notes on who decided to actually help hobo bean people and who did not. Because despite allowing these kid-diddling, diaper-wearing religious freakshows to have a seat at the table only one man will be blamed if it don’t work.
Gee, Jim, great economic advice. Just cut 100 billion from a stimulus that the best economists are already saying it may very well be already too small and watered down.
I, for one, was tired of waiting for this damn speech.