More Stimulus Nonsense

I know that everybody out there is saying that based on the results of the 2008 election, the Republicans are going to be out of power for a long time. I disagree. Right now, the Republicans have a great shot to set themselves up for retaking Congress in 2010 if they do one simple thing - vote against the $825 billion stimulus boondoggle that is making it's way along Capitol Hill.

The single biggest thing that John McCain did wrong was not running against the bailout when the economy went south. Instead, he suspended his campaign, went to Washington DC under the guise of we must make a deal, and then got burned when the original bill went down in flames. Whomever thought that letting John McCain go to Washington DC to try to make a deal gave him bad advice. I'm not a political operative, yet I could have told you that a Democratic Congress that was desperate in its attempt to recapture the White House was not going to let John McCain take any credit for any deal that was ever going to get made. And since McCain had no plan to offer, it made him look unpredictable and flighty. Then after railing against corporate fat cats, he votes "yes" on the stimulus anyway. At that point, to borrow a phrase from TMQ, I wrote "game over" in my notebook regarding the election.

Had McCain actually had a plan that did not include fleecing the American taxpayer and had he presented this plan to Congress and had the Democrats rejected it, then he could have run against the bailout. That I think would have resonated more with the American public than airing commercials about Obama and his ties to Bill Ayers.

But we'll never know.

As for this "stimulus" bill, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial, their estimate, after reading the entire bill which I doubt many members of Congress have actually done, only $90 billion actually go towards infrastructure projects that Obama and the Democrats have been touting. The rest is just giveaways to things such as Amtrak, global warming studies, the NEA (not that I don't think they deserve funding but in a stimulus bill? puh-lease), carbon capture studies, well, you get the idea. Some projects won't even be funded until year 3 or 4 of the spending plan. How does that stimulate the economy?

Now if this bill was all about upgrading infrastructure, like the power grid and such, I'd vote for it in a heartbeat because those things need to be upgraded. But this bill contains more pork than a package of Farmer John bacon.

Republicans have put forth their own plan. They should hold as many press conferences between now and the vote and highlight the fact that their proposal contains no new spending and puts money back in the hands of the people who actually work. Then they should vote "no" on the bill that the Democrats wrote and so eagerly want to pass.

And then when the country is still running giants deficits in 2010 and President Obama and Speaker Pelosi are talking about hiking taxes about the time inflation hits, the Republicans will run against the "stimulus bill" and sweep back to power.

Of course, if the stimulus bill works (and if it does I will change my middle name to "bin Laden" and re-register as a socialist), then the Republicans will be running against a very popular Democratic party. However, if I were a Republican Congressman, that's a chance I'd be willing to take. Put another way: if you vote for the bill and it works, the Democrats will not let you take any credit anyway, so you may as well stick to your principles and vote "no."