High price for small progress

The Senate finally found a couple of GOP votes for cloture and the state's aid bill is on its way to passing. Word has it Pelosi will call the House back into session to clear it through for the President's signature.

But Mark Kleiman notes the price of those Republican votes was costly.

Republicans in the Senate have agreed to avoid some teacher layoffs: in return for cutting Food Stamps in the midst of the worst prolonged employment crisis since the Great Depression. And they might – might- be willing to approve the New Start treaty (largely negotiated under Bush II and supported by everyone with basic literacy on nuclear issues): in return for wasting additional tens of billions of dollars on fancier nuclear weapons (which presumably don’t have to be “paid for” because they don’t actually help human beings).

So save some jobs but leave the destitute hungry while they pad the pockets of their crony contractors with deficit spending. Hell of a tradeoff. You would think with 1600 pages of rules in the Senate, there has to a better way for the Dems to overcome the GOP obstructionism other than slitting their own throats with inhumane and counterproductive tradeoffs.