Via the New York Times, it seems that the economic socialist stimulus plan has passed a procedural vote:
Senate Democrats on Monday advanced the $838 billion economic stimulus bill, clearing a major procedural hurdle by a razor thin margin with the help of just three Republicans. A vote on final passage of the bill is expected on Tuesday.
The Senate vote, by 61 to 36, to close debate on the stimulus, symbolized the partisanship that still grips Congress despite President Obama’s call for new cooperation. It also highlighted the rising power of the centrist Republicans who cast the critical votes. Under Senate rules, it takes 60 votes to invoke cloture and usher a bill to a vote.
Those votes, by Senators Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, along with the 56 Democrats and two Independents who regularly vote with them, followed a succession of floor speeches by Republicans criticizing the stimulus as a bloated, wasteful spending bill.
But supporters of the measure said that a good, bipartisan effort had been made at drafting a compromise bill.
“I am proud of the bipartisan work that we have done during the last 10 days,” said Ms. Collins, who supplied one of the three crucial Republican votes. “As with any major legislation, this bill is not perfect, but it can go a long way toward creating jobs and addressing the dire economic crisis facing our nation.”
The majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said: “The United States senators from both parties met the seriousness of the economic crisis with an earnest approach to solving this emergency.”
Well, as you can see, the Republican Party, the part that is supposed to be the party of small Government and low taxes, has once again capitulated to “The One.” Remember this come election time.
I do not understand why people are having problem realizing the urgency to get this bill approved. The number of unemployed people (11.6 million) and the unemployment rate (7.6 percent) rose in January. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 4.1 million. The Department of Labor reported today that nonfarm payroll employment fell sharply in January (-598,000) and the unemployment rate rose from 7.2 to 7.6 percent. Payroll employment has declined by 3.6 million since the start of the recession in December 2007, …. most of this mess happening only in past three months! And some wonder Obama is pushing so hard for a stimulus package. Is the Herbert Hoover approach, do nothing, all we need, leading us to a twelve year depression ??
Suggestions4Obama: We the People are against this bill because it is not a stimulus bill. It is a spending bill. It’s virtually all pork. Passing the bill will not help the economy.
Your employment numbers are about 1/2 of what they really are when measured in the manner of the Carter administration. http://www.shadowstats.com can provide more information.
Herbert Hoover was not a do-nothing president. He was a meddler. He thought it was the duty of government to fix the economy. Look where it got us.
The stimulus is a bunch of crap. The money doesn’t exist anyways, why bother? This is just going to end up bloating the system.
“we have it in our power to start the world over again” Thomas Paine
Agreed.