Legal Commentary

The Beltway's "Bipartisan" BSers Idea Of "Stimulus"

By Big Tent Democrat

Proving how unserious and silly she and every Beltway "bipartisan" BSer is, Claire McCaskill twitted:

Proud we cut over 100 billion out of recov bill. Many Ds don’t like it, but needed to be done. The silly stuff Rs keep talking about is OUT.

What McCaskill is celebrating:

The House puts greater emphasis on helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts in services and layoffs of public employees. The Senate cut $40 billion of that aid from its bill . . . The Senate plan, reached in an agreement late Friday between Democrats and three moderate Republicans, focuses somewhat more heavily on tax cuts, provides far less generous health care subsidies for the unemployed and lowers a proposed increase in food stamps.

(Emphasis supplied.) There is not a serious economist in America that will tell you that the Senate plan provides a better stimulus or is truly cheaper than the House plan. Here is one simple change that will improve the stimulative effect in the Senate plan AND lower the overall cost of the Senate bill:

The main fight is likely to be over the Senate’s proposal to cut $40 billion from proposed aid to states. . . .Another big difference is the Senate’s inclusion of nearly $70 billion for alternative minimum tax in 2009 . . .

A serious person truly interested in stimulus and the size of this package would reinstate the state aid and remove the AMT cut. This would make for much more effective stimulus and a reduction of 30 billion dollars in the cost of the package.

But people like Claire McCaskill, like her fellow Beltway "bipartisan" BSers, are not serious people interested in true stimulus. They are only interested in the "centrist" pose, not real results. President Obama has stood with them. And it has led to the failure of the stimulus bill.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 08, 2009 (boomark / email).