Rachel and Pete step up!

In other political news (ignoring the local hysterics surrounding Portland's Mayor Sam), Rachel Maddow rocks.

And so does Oregon's Peter DeFazio, who appeared on Rachel's show last Friday to bemoan Obama's partial caving to Republicans on the economic stimulus package. 

How does Rachel rock?  She holds Barack Obama's feet to the fire anytime he strays from progressive policy.  Like on the stimulus bill.

Rachel wants direct government spending on infrastructure, not tax cuts.  So do I, along with most economists who aren't named Larry Summers or are otherwise associated with either Reagan/Bush or the University of Chicago.  But what do we get instead?  A bill that is heavily tilted toward tax cuts, which makes Rachel very unhappy, so much so that she was inspired to utter this:

"And yet, Democrats and President Obama appear to be letting the technically-powerless Republican minority dictate the terms of the stimulus bill and dictate terms that don‘t get us what we need—loading it up with tax cuts and slashing spending on projects that could actually create jobs and do right by the country."

What then happened?  The House version of the stimulus bill -- "a watered down" version, in Rachel's own words-- was passed yesterday without a single Republican vote.  So much for bipartisanship.

The bill as passed was indeed watered down.  DeFazio on Friday put it this way:

"I mean, this—what‘s in this bill is like one half of one year‘s deficit in our infrastructure spending.  That‘s nowhere near what we need for current deficits, let alone, you know, a new 21^st century infrastructure system.

"China is spending $600 billion over the next two years.  We will spend 1/15 of that in this bill."

(DeFazio was on last night's show as well, but the transcript isn't up yet.)

On a related note, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz --he's one of those along with Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman who want a bigger stimulus bill-- has proposed nationalizing some of our banks to force them to start lending the money the taxpayers gave them, ala Sweden.  

How many Republicans you think would back that idea?  I would guess at least as many as voted for the stimulus bill.

Comments

[torridjoe]

As I posted this afternoon at Loaded O, he was back on her show yesterday, to talk about getting a little more transit included back in, and why Obama spent more time with the GOP listening to their concerns, than progressive Dems.
http://www.loadedorygun.net/showDiary.do?diaryId=1615

Go Pete! Yay Rachel!

[torridjoe]

Oh, PS--your video link goes nowhere.:)

[Terry]

Thanks, TJ. It's actually a transcript link and now it works.

You gotta love Pete DeFazio. And Rachel Maddow.

[Craig]

I like DeFazio as well. He had the good sense to vote against Bush's Wall Street bail-out plan. However, notwithstanding his criticisms of Obama's stimulus package, he voted for it.

I guess that, in the real world, you sometimes accept policies, bills, treaties and such that you don't entirely like because you realize that you aren't likely to get anything better.

[Wacky Mommy]

Yeah, hysterical much?

[Harry Kershner]

"All the Obama regime sees is a 'credit problem.' But the crisis goes far beyond banks’ bad investments. The United States is busted. Many of the state governments are busted. Homeowners are busted. Consumers are busted. Jobs are busted. Companies are busted.

"And Obama thinks he has the money to fight wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan...

"Washington is so accustomed to ripping off the taxpayers for the benefit of special interests that the practice is now in the DNA. While bailouts are being piled upon bailouts, wars are being piled upon wars.

"Before Obama gets in any deeper, he must ask his economic team where the money is coming from. When he finds out, he needs to tell the rest of us."

(Is It Time to Bail Out of the US? - Astonishing Incongruities By Paul Craig Roberts)