I’ve just learned that a group of Republican lawmakers plans to introduce a second stimulus bill, which they call the “No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009.” Members of the group, whose leaders include Rep. John Shadegg in the House and Sen. David Vitter in the Senate, have tried to come up with a plan that, in their estimation, would create two million new jobs, reduce the cost of energy, especially for lower-income Americans, make the U.S. less energy dependent, and not add to the national debt.
To do this, the plan would, among other things, speed up leasing for oil and gas exploration in the outer continental shelf; open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for energy production “in an environmentally-sensitive way” and with revenues directed to renewable energy projects; speed the licensing procedure for new nuclear power plants; speed the resolutions of lawsuits over federal oil and gas leasing; and prohibit the Endangered Species Act and Clean Air Act from being used as the basis for cap-and-trade and other carbon regulation/taxation.
The proposal is sure to elicit howls some Democrats and environmental groups. From a Republican point of view, it seems designed to echo the GOP’s last big legislative momentum-builder, its “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign to beat back Democratic energy/environmental proposals. How it will fare in a political environment that is radically different from last summer’s remains to be seen.
This is heartening on the one hand, and problematic on the other. Meaning that, while I believe this is certainly the right policy approach with which to try to beat back the Obama adminstration’s plans to permanently hamstring the US economy and create a “progressive” client state, one potential major snag is that, now that so many Republicans are on record as “hoping” the Obama administration “succeeds” (this forthcoming spin made popular by “Republicans for Whatever Scraps We Can Git!”), such a full-throated conservative-flavored proposal could potentially be branded as “extremist” and “out of touch” with the both the electoral “mandate” and those in the GOP who have expressed a willingness to “reach across the aisle.”
In other words, Goldilocks made her bed, so let’s hope the bears ain’t all that hungry.
We do have one thing going for us, however — namely, the Dem leadership’s recent backtracking on the Limbaugh attacks suggests, at least to me, that Obamaco realizes that they’ve stirred an anger in the conservative / libertarian / classical liberal ideological base, and that, if they plan to manipulate the mood of the country to prepare the grounds for instituting their quasi-socialist and socialist programs, they must learn to deal differently with angry idealists than they did with the likes of McCain and Brooks and Frum.
Partly the Hill repubs may be fighting back against this ongoing White House meme [from yesterday’s WH press brief]:
I don’t know. Judging by the reception given the British PM, I’d say not even quasi-socialists are guaranteed the good graces of the Great Good-Doer.
Richard Shelby is a whore, which I hadn’t realized until today. A big fat balding whore from Alabama. Drudge told me, and I appreciate that cause I hadn’t realized that Richard Shelby was a stinking fat-assed Alabama whore.
Viva socialism cause I’m not giving the Republicans a goddamn dime or a goddamn vote. Except for whoever challenges McCain.
I love how the media glossed over the parts where Buffet was critical of Teh One.
happyfeet’s got an OUTLAW’s “who’s your huckleberry?” shirt coming his way.
Well, if such a thing existed. Anybody?
Yep, he can go happyfeet, right along with Spector and the
gagsgals, if not straight into a woodchipper then maybe at least off out of our once proud Senate and back to his home in wherever. He could sell hotdogs from a pushcart mebbe.6 paperback books and a dying tree, a looking glass and a diamond ring. Yup.
I am not at all pleased, Mr. Goldstein. How long have those Rs been lying lying lying to me? I feel violated.
First question on Buffett to Gibbs:
Wow, two things!
I really do get the feeling that the Rs designate the public faces of their dirty socialist collaboration like droopy diseased Arlen and Lympia and now it’s the fatass from Alabama’s turn, and the rest of them like appeasing global warming pansy McCain and feckless shortbus Michael Steele pretend to be all shocked and affronted cause of how they love love love the free market. Not buying it.
I’d like to announce that from now on I will not be using Senator Spector’s name in comments. He will now be referenced as Gelatinous Traitor-Tool or GT-T for short.
Oh and Republicans in general will now be called Morayious Jelly-Bellies.
Thank you for your attention to this announcement. OUTLAW!
Close enough?
True enough, but there’s something else going on here: this is 2006, doubled and redoubled, no trump, dealer vulnerable.
A District, or a State, does not change its overall political orientation overnight. If, in the past, it had been electing Republican Representatives and Senators, the — philosophical tendencies, perhaps — didn’t change all that much when they selected the new Democrats. In 2006, Republicans lost ground for the same reasons they lost in 2008 — primarily, a perception of mis- or malfeasance on their part, not nearly so much that the Democratic Party’s proposals came closer to their constituents’ beliefs. The Democratic Party chose to interpret their win in 2006 as the result of a plebiscite on the Iraq War and the Bush Administration, and immediately leaped to try to implement pullouts, impeachment and the whole laundry list… and failed. Failed big time. Because the election had not been the plebescite they thought it was, and when they tried to implement their wish list there were whole hosts of Democratic Congresscritters who got cards and letters and phone calls and personal visits from the Folks Back Home, who informed them that that was not what they’d voted for and if the new incumbent wished to stay incumbent he’d better not lend himself to it any more than necessary.
Much the same is true this time. Obama wasn’t elected because everybody thought he’d make a great President (although certainly there were those who did) and the Democratic Party majority didn’t come about because everybody thought it was time to implement Democratic Party Left proposals; the election was a referendum on Republicans, who have lost the confidence of the electorate in many many many ways. But the Districts and States that sent new Democrats to Washington haven’t changed their stripes all that strongly, and you can bet that there are cards and letters and phone calls and personal visits from the Folks Back Home happening right now that are emphasizing that.
The Porkulus Bill went through because it got rammed through with little or no review or debate; new Reps and old alike were just stampeded. Now that there’s a bit of time for reflection, and now that the true incompetence of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Administration is coming to light, that isn’t likely to happen as often, and more-reasonable proposals will have a chance, to the deep and abiding anguish of the Democratic Party Left.
Regards,
Ric
The Porkulus Bill also went through because cowardly appeaser John McCain’s vanity campaign was such a plane wreck that his party might never recover and now he has to fellate his captors all over again for years on end. The good thing is he’s good at it and his little dog Lindsey’s happy to help.
happyfeet, you may need to look into a temporary moniker amendment until the clouds pass.
I trust the “we hope he succeeds” Republicans understand that any opposition to Lord Unicorn’s proposals to Congress will be viewed as treasonous backpedaling on their support for His Hooves. How’s that diplomacy workin’ out for you, GOP?
Forget that, the Democrats have a fever and the only cure is More Stimulus!
““We are going to need more taxpayer money,†Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com and a key economic advisor to Congressional Democrats, said after the meeting. “I think another stimulus package is a reasonable assumption because of the way things are going.â€
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), standing with members of her leadership team by Zandi’s side, said she agreed that another stimulus bill is being considered as an option.”
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/house-dems-eyeing-another-stimulus-bill-2009-03-10.html
Wow, just wow. Can we put ourselves further into the pit? YES WE CAN!
Remember when Democrats were all tsk-tsking Bushhitler for the horrible deficits that would be payed by our children and grandchildren?
Ah, nostalgia!
You reckon they’re aiming at a nationwide rash of suicides Techie? Maybe trying to set some new “first”, first black president, first president to intentionally drive Americans to off themselves?
More and more this stimulus stuff is beginning to sound like a Viagra commercial of the four hours and seek professional medical help kind.
NO ONE EXPECTS THE STIMULOUSQUISITION! WE ARE GIRDED WITH 1000 WAYS TO BLOW YOUR TAXES…
Sdferr, I preferred the president who drove Islamic terrorists to off themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_suicide_attempts
It’s “mind your goddammed business” from all of these House and Senate geezers. Why are there never tornadoes in D.C.? I mean, I’d maybe consider thinking about cap ‘n trade if just once, a big ass tornado would hit the capital when both houses were in session. That’s how you make a case. JUST ONCE!
Here’s the thing: people want Action This Day, which is why Obama still remains popular with the public. He’s the guy who’s trying to solve the problem. It is vitally important for Republicans to act positively and make a substantive contribution to the debate. This way, they are not constantly in a reactive mode. Yes, the Democrats won, but by introducing legislation, Republicans can begin the long march to 2010 and begin to reframe the language on our terms.
Right now, we’re just reacting. See Frum, David.
Well, I guess over against trying to paint the Republicans as “the party of No” [could we make that “Ni!”?] if Obama’s people end up painting themselves as “the party of No Clue”, maybe there’s something to be had in that.
If you wanted to throw a monkey wrench into the National Socialist Health Care freight train, this might be a good way to do it.
Oh, spare me. Frum’s attention-getting is already getting stale. He’s only fooling himself if he thinks after getting in bed with Newsweak and Chrissy Matthews they’ll respect him in the morning. Drunken college freshmen coeds on Spring Break have more rectitude.
We need a “Just Say No” shirt with Obama’s soviet-looking pic on it.
As I stated previously, Barcky and the Dems were just softening the American public up with the $800,000,000,000 in the first “stimulus” package. By the time they are done with us, we will look back fondly on the days of billions or even low trillions of dollars in deficits.
It seems to me, with drunkard’s walk of this “administration,” the Democrats are becoming the party of “Maybe We Should Read The Fucking Manual.”
Cut corporate taxes substantially. Or zero them out for a couple of years, as Jen Rubin suggested. Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley. Rebate a significant chunk of payroll tax.
Stop, for god’s sake, stop demonizing corporations and corporate leaders. Maybe even praise them for a change of pace. Try to do something about reversing the mark-to-market rule, whether with a reversion to the mark-to-model or some variation thereon, as Peter Wallison suggested in the WSJ a week or so ago.
Don’t impose more restrictions on carbon-dioxide emissions. Actually, think about easing some of the more stringent environmental regulations currently running. Make the environment a friendlier place to do business instead. Coal is good and burning it is great.
Make energy production in general more profitable, so that energy output can be plentiful and less expensive, less a burden on the economy as a whole. Stop centrally determined schemes aimed at promoting unproven and uneconomical sources and methods of achieving greater energy production. Stop choosing stupid wastes like corn-ethanol or cellulose-ethanol. Don’t subsidize windfarms. Don’t subsidize solar energy production. If these things can be profitable on their own, they will find their own markets.
In fact, get the government out of the business of handing out subsidized goodies to anybody. End sugar subsidies, dairy subsidies, food production subsidies of every sort. Allow ready importation of cheaply produced goods like sugar from Brazil and Latin America. Don’t choose expensive sugar from Fl or La over these. Cut it out with handing out dough to dairy farms in hot places like Miss or La or Tx, for fucks sake, let the milk come from Wisc. where they know how to cheese.
After making a lot of changes like this, quit paying people to stay out of work an extra 18 weeks or whatever it is it’s been extended to. In fact, think hard about paying people who could and ought to be working to stay out of work at all, save that sort of thing for people who really can’t work.
30: “Have you read this thing? It’s like stereo instructions!”
OT but Breaking Good News: Chas “Crush The Peasants” Freeman withdraws nomination.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/03/chas-freeman-pu.html
Best Transition EVAR!
“Maybe We Should Read The Fucking Manual.â€
A manual written by the same people who write IKEA assembly instructions?
Those fuckin’ Swedes are a devious lot …
Those crafty Swedes………….
I bought a desk at IKEA. Followed the instructions to the letter and wound up with a tree house. True story.
Good one, Big D. I bought an entertainment center from there. It is good kindling.
Now, to be fair, I have several excellent bookshelves from IKEA. Kinda hard to mess up bookcases.
They burn well, don’t they Techie?
they must learn to deal differently with angry idealists than they did with the likes of McCain and Brooks and Frum.
Music to my ears, Mr. Outlaw sir. Narcissists and their enablers can’t deal with criticism, especially not when it is focused, principled, relentless, and TRUE.
Keep banging the drums. Sometimes it looks like you’re not making any progress at all, then comes the tipping point, and wee ha.
We need a “Just Say No†shirt with Obama’s soviet-looking pic on it.
How about “I will not submit” in English and Arabic with the same pic?
It’s a two-fer!
What will happen if or when people, the nation, the nation’s leaders, finally come to the conclusion that “saving” corporations we’ve been doing, the GM’s and Chrysler’s, the AIG’s, Fannies and Freddies, and the giant insolvent banks, whichever they are, has all been a terrible mistake, pouring good money down an ultimately unrecoverable drain, that we (whoever we is) must stop and let these enterprises fail, go down, be liquidated now absorbing not only the losses that had spurred the salvage attempts, but the losses of great fractions of the bailouts as well? Ironically, it very well may come to pass that we learn that for the sake of putting off terrible short-term financial pain, we will have incurred even greater, more far-reaching, more terrible short and long-term pain? Will we learn this (hypothetical) time? Or will we, in our distress, once again fail to learn? Is our polity fit for the possibility of learning?
I’m selling my vote to whomever lets me borrow their pickup.
“No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009.â€
Who said there was no such thing as a free lunch?
6 paperback books and a dying tree, a looking glass and a diamond ring. Yup.
You lost a lot when you lost me.
A law firm after my own heart.
Who said there was no such thing as a free lunch?
http://hnn.us/articles/52730.html
Is our polity fit for the possibility of learning?
It’s hard to learn from your mistakes when you don’t know what they are. How many people know that FDR actually prolonged the depression because of his gleeful experimentation with the economy? How many people know that the 10th Amendment has been violated more times than any other?
For that matter, how many people know why the banks have failed? Do they know how Fred&Fan and Frank, Dodd, and ACORN were complicit in the deep moral hazard they created? Do people understand why the Big Three are struggling?
Do they know that AGW is a gigantic fraud?
Then again, who wants to know such overwhelming Truth? When you know that the system is corrupt, you can either fight or wade up to your nostrils in the Big Egyptian River. The latter, being the path of least resistance, is the more common option.
Remember when Democrats were all tsk-tsking Bushhitler for the horrible deficits that would be payed by our children and grandchildren?
I don’t even think it was tsk-tsking, they were calling it treason etc.
How many people understand that the Constitution isn’t the government granting rights to the people, it is the people granting rights to the government? That is where I would start.
The learning polity:
It’s going to learn whether it wants to or not. That’s how reality works. Whether the lesson will be hard or extra hard and whether the lessons learned will be beneficial remain to be seen.
Wait. Are you for real that upset with me, B Moe? I can’t help it if I don’t feel very Republicany. They keep pushing me away and after awhile you just don’t argue anymore. You just don’t argue anymore. You just don’t argue anymore. My name is Luka I think, Mr. Benedick.
Wait. Are you for real that upset with me, B Moe?
Not at all, dude. That was the next line in the song you were quoting, Positively Lost Me by the Rave-Ups, who happen to be one of my favorite bands.
Do they still play around LA at all?
my name is Luka-ha!/thanks
A manual written by the same people who write IKEA assembly instructions?
There’s a bit in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where the protagonist, a tech writer, explains how assembly instructions are created.
1) You go to the factory and ask for someone to work with you for a week or so.
2) The foreman gives you the person who he can most afford to lose for a week — naturally, he gives you the most useless fuckup on the assembly line.
3) Whatever that guy tells you become the instructions.
oh. Hah. I went and checked the time stamps and ended up reading too much into that I think. I guess they probably play here but not the Valley. So it would be out of my zone, really.
No cost my ass. Even if financially free (dubious, that), the cost is in ever greater dependancy on big government. That’s a hell of a price to pay.
They’re habituating us, is all they’re doing.
It’s time to name names and decide which side people are on. This hewing to moderation is simply another way to say selling principles off cheap.
Who said there was no such thing as a free lunch?
Once again a lefty displays their fundamental lack of understanding of basic economics.
Here’s a hint, it’s not exactly free if you have to get off your ass and actually go out and earn or produce. But it often involves no added budgetary costs when the government merely frees you to do what they have otherwise banned.
“Is our polity fit for the possibility of learning?”
If it is, it’s the first. The common tercile split remains functional – the bottom third can be trained but education beyond basics has a rather prohibitive cost/benefit ratio. It’s almost as if the Founders understood Gaussian distribution wrt suffrage.
ACORN has proven to be reasonably effective in moving that bottom demos. The problem is (as it was in Rome) the rather prohibitive cost of perpetual panem et circenses for the mob. Promises won’t keep those crack pipes filled. It’s a bit difficult to come up with a principled message to stir the mob into action against those unable to fulfill promises. The Jacobins managed it but I don’t believe that fits into the Outlaw paradigm as I understand it.
Referring back to my post at 30, I’m a little worried that the Dims will try to find a fucking manual. And it will be “Das Kapital.”
And if all you type is gibberish, you never have to worry about reasoned responses.
Allowing someone the opportunity to plant a garden is not the same thing as a free lunch.
Bmoe and happy,
The enemy is out there! Turn your guns on them – not each other. We’ve got to come together so that we may defeat these people. And when you argue it gives me a stomach ache and I can’t eat my dinner.
True. But if it uses up resources, it’s not really “free.†It’s just that nobody is paying that cost.
????
it’s zen, right?
How is this going to create 2 million jobs? That figure seems laughably, if not criminally optimistic. So basically what they are saying is that if we could just turn a blind eye to the environment, everything will come up roses.
“So basically what they are saying is that if we could just turn a blind eye to the environment, everything will come up roses.”
And its ‘zen’ that nobody pays for environmental use.
oh. Hi, al. I went to bed early. I’ve been a lot flirting with fatalism lately. I should stop that but it’s very seductive.
True. But if it uses up resources, it’s not really “free.†It’s just that nobody is paying that cost.
And the Cap and Trade dealo pays the cost?
And who is profiting?
And, how come carbon output isn’t going down (but up) where it’s being used?
So basically what they are saying is that if we could just turn a blind eye to the environment, everything will come up roses.
No, if we turn a critical eye to shoddy environmental science, and refuse to shackle our economy with the regressive tax of Cap and Trade (for one) … everything will come up roses.
But, thanks for playing.
We need a plan to make animals pay for using the environment. Deficit. Problem. Solved.
Snicker. SFG is now lecturing us on the environment.
It’s not really necessary — everyone knows that socialist states like China and the former Soviet Union are Eden-like environmental wonderlands. All those filthy coal plants in China? All those defunct nuclear reactors that the Soviets simply dumped into the Arctic Ocean? The “Asian brown cloud”? Figments, I tell you! Figments! Limbaugh propaganda!
Hey, SFG: ever occur to you to wonder why stupid fucking envirowhacko hippies like you only manage to get traction in rich capitalist countries? Of course it didn’t. It’s because starving people in communist slave states don’t give a fuck about the environment.
Maybe you should, like, look at what happens when your policies are actually put into effect, rather than fantasizing about it. It’s not like we don’t have dozens of failed Marxist states to look at.
Oh, but this time it’ll be different! We’ll have geniuses like Barack “Can’t chew gum and read a teleprompter at the same time” Obama and Stupid Fascist Girl at the helm! What could possibly go wrong?
Tell you what, SFG: why don’t you and your buddies head to Shenzen and try to barricade People’s Coal Generating Station #234?
I’ve been listening to a great podcast series about Rome, creatively titled “The History of Rome Podcast”. I can’t recommend it enough, especially if your formal education skimped on the real Roman history.
Anyway, after Gaius Julius Caesar won the civil war, he ordered a census to figure out who really was entitled to the free grain allotment. There were 320,000 people in Rome drawing on it, and that seemed… out of line. Well, it turned out there were “only” 150,000 actually entitled to it — the others were either non-citizens or were lying about owning property in order to get the free food.
Just sayin’, is all.
free lunch! great-i’m hungry…
[pause] u mean they don’t have waitresses? / i have to get in a LINE!
well…alright/but who’s gonna bus my table?
I just can’t see the 2 million new jobs promise ever happening. Energy isn’t exactly a labor-intesive field (there are only some 600,000 people in Alaska). 650,000 Americans lost their jobs last month alone. Meanwhile, even if we did go through with this policy, it would take a long time to see much movement of resources in this direction.