Ceding the stimulus debate

Krugman has another great op-ed today about how the GOPers, in permanent obstruction mode, have managed to hijack the stimulus debate and the Democrats' apparent inability to push back.

It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.

Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.

The stimulus bill isn't perfect but there are plenty of good provisions that the Dems could be holding up as clear and simple examples of how it would help. When are they going to learn how to fry the GOP's bacon instead of allowing themselves to be fileted into pork chops by a bunch of ideological thugs who are larding the bill with the same kind of tax cuts that roasted the economy in the first place?

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]