John McCain Promotes Bipartisan Cooperation by Ranting on the Internet
I bet John McCain wishes he still had a presidential campaign right now, so he could pretend to suspend it in protest of the Senate's version of the economic stimulus package, which John McCain just hates so much.
To find out why, let's take a peek at the email he sent to the remains of his list today…
Our country does not need just another spending bill, particularly not one that will load future generations with the burden of massive debt.
A Republican bitching about spending? No way! This guy, he really is the original maverick. Breakin' with his party. Takin' his lumps. Gotta respect him for that.
I appreciate the discussions President Obama is having with my Republican colleagues, but the time for talking has come to an end and we must now begin some serious negotiation.
If there's one thing we learned last year, it's that John McCain hates talking. Besides, it's time for serious negotiation. You don't need talking to do that. Anything else, Senator?
With so much at stake, the last thing we need is partisanship driving our attempts to turn the economy around.
Absolutely, and that is why John McCain created this friendly bipartisan internet petition attacking "the Democrats and the Obama Administration."
If Barack Obama does not sign that petition personally, it will simply be proof of his partisan selfishness.
RSS
[...] policy-weakening concessions and bitter resentment from Democrats and Republicans? As John McCain knows so well, bipartisanship comes first and effective legislation comes second, maybe third, depending on what [...]
Bearness rocks! The shovel ready picture reminded me of the row upon row of trailer homes purchased by the government after their too slow response to Katrina, while thousands remained homeless – and then the realization that many of the "homes" were throwing off toxic fumes that made them inhabitable. There will undoubtedly be future "way to go, Brownie!" congratulations that turn out to be turds.
I have to say it: I love you, bearness!
Explain to me how tax relief creates new jobs when everyone is saving every penny they can because they are worried about unemployment and credit availability is almost non-existent? A credit freeze did not exist on any of the other historical scenarios presented in the first video.
And government always grows faster than inflation. It has to. Government employment salaries grow at the rate of inflation. Then, I'll use infrastructure because I'm most familiar with it, you have a certain number of projects that must be built every year to maintain a level-of-service. The costs of new projects grow at the rate of inflation. But you also have to rehab a certain percentage of existing infrastructure every year. The cost of a project rehab grows with inlation. But because there is more existing infrastructure, there has to be more rehab projects every year. Which means you will spend more on the combination of all construction projects than the rate of inflation.
My personal belief is that “big government” or “small government” can not be directly equated with “good government” or “bad government”. There is “effective government” and “ineffective government.” Which one you have depends on the policies and leadership at the top not on size of staff or project spending.
My only problem with the stimulus package for projects is the deadlines for implementation. Yes, of course, it should be used on projects that are ready to be built now so that money can be pumped into the economy faster. However, to meet deadlines projects will be rushed to construction. Which means they will not be as well thought out and they might be overbuilt because spending the money on anything, even things absurd or unnecessary, will become more important than using the money on top priority projects, cost efficient projects, or better designed projects.
My prediction: expect “The Bridge To Nowhere” and many similar "nowhere" projects to be built with stimulus money because they are “shovel ready” and money needs to be spent.
For those who are interested, the Cato Institute points out the problems with this "stimulus" package:
http://www.cato.org/fiscalreality
Now you see why we should've elected a libertarian president. Then we would've had a reasonable solution to this mess.
I didn't know he could type……
If you can't talk while negotiating then McCain will just have to…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4
I don't think anyone that has an internet petition bashing one specific political party knows what the definition of the word bipartisan is. That same person should also dictionary.com the meaning of negotiation. There will have to be discussion for any action to take place. Everyone is in upheaval about the nature of our most recent stimulus as well and whether or not both parties need to be involved. The question is posed in this video I found: http://www.newsy.com/videos/obama_s_push_to_move_fast
If they take John's stance, I guess not.
Wait a minute John. I thought the fundamentals of the economy were strong. Why would you want to "stimulate" the strong?
Some of these things the Republicans consider "wasteful spending" are: funding the CDC to help screen and prevent SDTs (cause who would want to do that), funding smoking cessation programs (cause smoking is good for you), flood control projects on the Mississippi River (cause that never flooded before), funding wildland fire management on forest service land (fuck, its only trees), repairing the National Institute of Health at Bethesda (the one with moldy cracking walls and rodent infestations that our war veterans loved so much), and paying the salaries of FBI employees (really, who needs the FBI?).
Seriously, dude admitted during the election he doesn’t understand the economy. Why would anyone pay attention to him.
In the interest of full disclosure: the stimulus bill will guarantee the security of my job for two years. I’m all for it.