Obama, Obama, Obama. With the highest approval rating of a new President ever and a Democratic majority in Congress, Republicans unanimously declined the stimulus bill that Obama proposed. Obama attempted to pass this bill with bipartisan support by nip and tucking the Stimulus plan to meet Republican desires.
Upon watching Rachel Maddow, Republican Congressman Don Manzullo stated that his idea of a Stimulus plan would be an auto-voucher to help the public purchase a new car. He stated that he has a Chrysler manufacturing plant in his district, and if the government handed out $5,000 vouchers to invest in a new car, people would obviously flock to the (Chrysler) car lots. This guy is obviously delusional, because if the public had an auto-voucher, they would most likely flock to Toyota seeing that Japanese car company is now the leading car manufacturer. His sick methodology continued, and he explained that the new cars sold fell from 17 million units to 10 million units, and that if the US could just get back to 15 million units sold than all could be OK. I felt my body begin to pump adrenaline listening to Manzullo. He refused to agree with Maddow when she tried to propose the idea that a stimulus plan should create jobs instead of provide vouchers.
Unfortunately, in Obama's quest to create a bipartisan government, we ended up with a watered down Stimulus plan with less spending on infrastructure, and therefore less spending on potential public transit projects. Obama's need for bipartisanship is his own battle and goal, but with Democratic majority in Congress, its just not needed. Doing things to make people like you is an action not uncommon, but watering down stimulus packages to make people like you - that's a big no-no. Hopefully, this was a learning experience to the most popular president and pop culture icon: nice guys finish last.
Now, Obama is hosting a bipartisan cocktail party. Post-Stimulus status. Sounds awkward.
Read more on this here
Manzullo interview:
Its interesting to note that Manzullo states in his introduction that he chose to appear on the Maddow show because she is so popular. Holler!
Posts
2 comments:
Sounds awkward! Ha! What do you think about this movement towards bipartisanship? I feel as though Obama is EXTREMELY liberal, but he knows that in order to bring the union together, he must fall somewhere into gray area amongst both democrats and republicans. It happened with Lincoln, FDR, JFK - some of our greatest presidents. I think he's doing the right thing.
Hm, I wish I could agree. At times in the past (circa 2006, pre-campaign status) he displayed liberal thinking, similar to my own thoughts, which was the catalyst for my support of him. However, I would appreciate some liberal actions. In a government with a democrat majority, his bipartisan intentions are just not needed. Where as Bush was too stubborn and arrogant, Obama can't have a successful presidency if he is constantly chasing republican support; he already won the popularity contest.
But I see your point.
Post a Comment