As expected, the Obamnibus passed the House. As not so expected, the Republican caucus held firm for the first time in sixteen years and gave the monstrosity exactly zero votes (Roll Call Vote).
This is beginning to look like a re-run of the 1993 Clinton “stimulus.” That time it was Republicans in the Senate who held firm (with some help by then-Democrat Richard Shelby) and actually killed the plan by filibuster. The GOP later went on to unanimously oppose Clinton’s tax hike that summer, and was rewarded for their principled stand in 1994 with control of Congress for the first time in forty years.
Before the Republicans in Washington found their spine, Clinton’s stimulus was considered inevitable, too.
As for this version, not only have 200 economist come out against the idea (Cato), but so did a certain foreigner who in the process set a unique precedent (the Times of London, emphasis added):
Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, launched a swingeing attack on Western financial rescue packages yesterday . . . “Interference of the State, the belief in the omnipotence of the State: that is a reaction to market failures,” Mr Putin said in his keynote address at the opening of the four-day meeting. “There is a temptation to expand direct interference of state in economy. In the Soviet Union that became an absolute. We paid a very dear price for that.”
Congratulations, Mr. President, your economic plan is so invasive that Russia’s Prime Minister - and the man widely “credited” with bringing tyranny back to that land – can actually criticize your policies from the right.
If that isn’t a sign to rethink what you’re doing . . .
January 29, 2009 at 8:10 am |
It would only be a time to rethink the plan, if you give ultimate authority to the words of Putin. Which I don’t. And the price of doing nothing, would be a hell of a lot worse than trying to do something.
Obama is making the right decision, at a time when the Reagan/Thatcherite apparent truths of how immortal and amazing the free market is, has finally come crashing down. Obama is merely trying to put right, a Republican/Conservative flawed legacy.
January 29, 2009 at 8:21 am |
C’mon, fd, you can’t even get your own talking points right! I thought Bush was the cause of all evil.
Furthermore, if you know anything about the current situation, you’d know how little the free market actually had to do with any of it.
January 29, 2009 at 9:03 am |
And the price of doing nothing, would be a hell of a lot worse than trying to do something.
Excuse me: what?! The only way this is remotely a reasonable contention is if government meddling is reduced, e.g. tax cuts–spending gross sums of money in an FDR-like re-tread (go read some history to see where this sort of things ends up before wasting our time with hope and change).
January 31, 2009 at 9:58 pm |
Good Post RWL:
Maybe fd.. seriously democracy may be futile.. Alexander Hamilton is credited for saying that the ‘Masses are Asses’….. but Republics are Forever! (until brought down by socialists).
I think this IBD editorial is instructive to this discourse.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?secid=1501&status=article&id=318212344208655&secure=1&show=1&rss=1