Republicans and the Stimulus Bill

Rush Limbaugh, on President Obama and the Stimulus Bill: "I want everything he's doing to fail... I want the stimulus package to fail.... I do not want this to succeed." (Watch him say it here: http://tinyurl.com/df7q4b And watch what happens when/if any Republican dares to say different than Rush: http://tinyurl.com/dl8nq9 )

Every Republican Congressperson voted against the stimulus bill. All but three Republican senators voted against it. Every single Republican in both houses of Congress voted for proposed Republican “stimulus” plans consisting only of tax cuts. And they overwhelmingly voted for George W. Bush’s tax cuts.

Remember George W. Bush’s tax cuts?

In 2001, President Bush's major legislative “triumph” was the $1.35 trillion tax cut. More tax cuts were passed in 2002 and 2003, costing the federal government much more than the stimulus package,

The Bush tax cuts were skewed dramatically toward the wealthy. In 2004, 60% of the tax cuts went to the top 20 percent of income earners with over 25% going to the top 1% of income earners. Those numbers have increased since then as the cuts to the estate tax have taken effect. (A.L.)

Wealthy people mostly invested their tax cuts in the financial markets as opposed to spending them, because they didn’t need money to spend – they’re rich.

Remember, we borrowed the money to pay for the Bush tax cuts, they weren’t free. They are a big part of the reason why the national debt doubled from $5 trillion to $10 trillion during Bush’s eight years. Money our kids and grandkids owe.

And with the recent worldwide stock market crash, much of that money has now, quite simply, vanished. Poof gone!

Here’s the kicker - we have little to show for all that deficit spending. “One of the most frustrating things over the last eight years has been the ability of George Bush to pile up debt, and huge deficits,” President Obama said before the election, “and not have anything to show for it. ...if you're going to run deficit spending, then it better be in rebuilding our roads, our bridges, sewer lines, our water systems, laying broadband lines.” http://tinyurl.com/6gmey2 The average American family income went down by $1000 during the Bush “expansion.”

Here are some things we already know the Obama stimulus bill:

• Unlike Bush era budgets that hid all manner of costs (like the wars), no gimmicks were used to play “hide the dollars” in the stimulus bill.
• It will prevent widespread layoffs and reductions in service by state governments that would have made our current economic problems considerably worse.
• It will put millions of people to work doing the things that, as President Obama says, “America needs done:” roads, bridges, water systems, schools, electric distributions systems and green infrastructure that will save huge amounts of money in just a few years, investments in medical infrastructure that will pay off in savings of dollars and lives.
• All of those people in the public and private sector who get jobs or keep their jobs because of the stimulus bill will buy things - like food and cars and kitchen cabinets - which will help other people get or keep jobs to meet the demand.

We know that the stimulus bill alone will not save our economy; there are many, many problems to fix. But it is an important start, and we know that our money is being used to get people working now and to lay the essential groundwork for future American prosperity.

The Bush tax cuts, not so much. As the Anonymous Liberal charitably noted, Bush “took a bunch of money and lit it on fire, and now we are in worse fiscal shape that we have ever been in as a nation, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel.” Remember that when you hear Rush Limbaugh say: “I want the stimulus package to fail.... I do not want this to succeed."

The Rev. Pat Robertson had perhaps the best response to Limbaugh: “That was a terrible thing to say. I mean, he's the president of all the country. If he succeeds, the country succeeds. And if he doesn't, it hurts us all. Anybody who would pull against our president is not exactly thinking rationally. http://tinyurl.com/ajnkjh

Note: this column was based on key elements of Anonymous Liberal’s The Stimulus Bill in Perspective.