Wingers fail to read the fine print in CBO report - Updated
I'm predicting you're going to be hearing a lot about this report that right wing rag Washington Times blared with the headline: CBO: Obama stimulus harmful over long haul. It's not exactly misstating the conclusion. It just attributes the failure to the wrong person.
Steve M reads the fine print and the problem isn't with the spending Obama is proposing. As he says, "So good spending includes unemployment insurance, food assistance ... and the refundable tax credits right-wingers denounce as "welfare"?"
What's dragging the effectiveness down are the tax cuts the GOP are extorting from the Dems in trade for votes. Steve has graphic of the pertinent chart and a link to a pdf of the full report. Screw bipartisanship. They should strip out every giveback and just vote on the bill. And if the GOPers threaten to filibuster, then make them stand there and talk.
Update: Oddly, the story seems to have dropped off the radar. Wonder if it has anything to do with Decorous Contrarian's post? He crunched the numbers and found the worst case scenario "is a net 2.5 percent GDP increase." And that's including the sabotaging amendments the GOPers are extorting now. Which brings up the age old question about the Washington Times headline. Incompetent or lying?
[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]
Steve M reads the fine print and the problem isn't with the spending Obama is proposing. As he says, "So good spending includes unemployment insurance, food assistance ... and the refundable tax credits right-wingers denounce as "welfare"?"
What's dragging the effectiveness down are the tax cuts the GOP are extorting from the Dems in trade for votes. Steve has graphic of the pertinent chart and a link to a pdf of the full report. Screw bipartisanship. They should strip out every giveback and just vote on the bill. And if the GOPers threaten to filibuster, then make them stand there and talk.
Update: Oddly, the story seems to have dropped off the radar. Wonder if it has anything to do with Decorous Contrarian's post? He crunched the numbers and found the worst case scenario "is a net 2.5 percent GDP increase." And that's including the sabotaging amendments the GOPers are extorting now. Which brings up the age old question about the Washington Times headline. Incompetent or lying?
[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]
Labels: economy, President Obama, Republicans, spending
posted by Libby Spencer at 10:27 PM
7 Comments:
Agreed! Except they should leave in a small middle-class tax cut just so most people get a tangible benefit right away. But it should be mostly spending.
Absolutely anon. If you linked posts, the report makes clear that tax cuts for the lower level tax payers help. In fact the ones that help the most are the ones that go those people who allegedly don't pay taxes.
You know the ones who make so little that they don't have to pay federal income tax. Every cent they get will go directly into the economy.
You missed the real point. The Washington Times article messed this up, big-time. See my Kos diary:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/6/03938/84028/757/693856
This pork package only creates government jobs & does nothing to stimulate the real economy---just creates more slots for the corrupt Dem government faineants to fill.
This stimulus is bad in so many ways, and the current economic distress isn't nearly as bad as the double-digit inflation & interest rates that Jimmy Carter left us with in 1980....just the press is screaming Chicken Little to cover for Obama's Great Leap Forward, which will be as successful as Chairman Mao's was in the long run not too long ago! What a crock that Obama & his twin nitwits in the Senate & House are ramming down the throats of gullible MSM fellow-travelers.....
Hey Decorous, great catch. I'll update the post with a link to yours.
Dave. Long time, no see. Great parroting of the addled Limbaugh talking points. I hope he's paying for this.
Jimmy Carter inherited a mess. But for some reason, he gets all the blame for a situation that was coming no matter who was president.
Truth, I think Jimmy Carter is the most unfairly criticized president in history. Those were different times. It wasn't so easy to buck the system and he was taken down by the Villagers as much as anything.
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