Joe Conason says ...

Words of Wisdom for 1/28/2009 #5

To listen to the Senate Republicans and their leader, Mitch McConnell, is to hear once more the old nostrums of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, along with pleas for “bipartisan input” and complaints about “wasteful spending.” The House Republicans chime in with the same drearily familiar themes, as the minority leader, John Boehner, warns against “irresponsible spending on government programs” and urges the new administration to put any stimulus bill online for “at least one week” while making sure there are no “special-interest earmarks.”

Leaving aside the boilerplate rhetoric about wasteful federal spending—which never troubled the Republicans on either side of Capitol Hill when they were legislating record deficits—these recommendations seem harmless enough. Putting the stimulus bill online for public comment sounds like something Mr. Obama might want to do. He scarcely needs advice about communicating with the public from the other party. Abolishing earmarks was the dominant economic theme of the Republican campaign last fall, which was soundly rejected by voters. Awful as certain porky earmarks may be, they represent a miniscule portion of the federal budget—and they remain just as irrelevant to the global economic crisis as they were three months ago.

So is that all? Reviewing the recent comments of Mr. McConnell and Mr. Boehner, it is impossible to find much substance that actually addresses the problems of rising unemployment, falling demand, shrinking production and disappearing credit. There is no fresh policy platform and no honest effort to confront the costs of deregulation and disinvestment.

- Joe Conason in an article titled "The Stimulus Killers"