Today is primary day and 3.5 million Flori

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Is the dialogue about economic stimulus developing?

As an independent voter, what do you think about the economic stimulus plan and partisan politics?? Here's what Gallup said independents said:

Independent voters favor the progressive priorities set forth by Obama: 50 percent independents favor "increased government funding of projects" in the recovery package, compared to only 36 percent who favor "tax cuts for individuals/businesses" promulgated by conservatives. Congressional Republicans, who see political gain from their "party of no" status, have a "staggeringly high" disapproval of 58 percent. Their approval rating is at 44 percent compared to 60 percent for Democrats.




Newman and Salit had this to say on today's Talk Talk The Rules of the Game:
 
Salit: In attempting to give what you might call a more strategic framing to the shaping of the stimulus package, Mark Shields says that one of the things that's operative, at a meta-level if you will, is that it's the end of the conservative era. The conservative era is over. Deregulation, tax cuts, all of that has been wholly discredited by the facts on the ground, by the onset of the economic crisis. So, says Shields, the conservative era is over, but we don't know where to go. We're in "uncharted territory," his term. I guess what he's saying is that things haven't "swung back to" traditional liberalism, but conservatism is over. So the question is where are we? Where are we going?

Newman: All that might be true. I don't know. It sounds somewhat metaphorical to me. But the process has remained exactly the same.

Salit: The process for hammering out what Congress does, yes.

Newman: It's like people who come in to reform education and one side has a liberal view and the other side has a conservative view. But, when you get to the schools, the chairs are screwed into the floor in exactly the same way, no matter what....


1 comment:

Jack Jodell said...

Nancy, I favor government spending to create jobs. Contrary to what the wingnuts on the far right say, it DOES do this!They love to say that New Deal programs didn't work, but my uncle was able to feed himself and his younger siblings modestly during the Great Depression because of work the CCC provided him when good ol' private industry had nothing to offer. Tax cuts have NOT created loads of high-paying jobs here, as was promised in the Bush era and as I mention in my current blog. Instead, DEOs put them in their wallets! The GOP is all wrong to oppose the Obama Stimulus Plan!