Morrissey on the “Porkulus Three”

by Little Miss Attila on February 16, 2009

(For crying out loud: the poloitical pundit at Hot Air. Not the singer. If I have to explain that again I’ll get cranky again, and none of you like me when I’m cranky.)

Ed’s right: It’s time to pour some resources into Maine and Pennsylvania—and look for alternatives to Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins (the Senators from Maine), and Arlen Spector (of Pennsylvania). Irrespective of their motives, the damage they did to the economy by enabling the “Stimulus Bill” will last for a decade or better.

a big-tent party has to have room for some disagreement, and the only way to get to a majority again in Congress is to build a large enough coalition to take charge. Purity drives [in general] lower our numbers and our ability to influence policy.

This, however, is a different matter. First, the Republicans need to re-establish credibility as the party of fiscal responsibility, and supporting Porkulus is antithetical to that effort. No matter how big a tent the Republicans need to pitch, they still need to stand for core values—and among them should be fiscal responsibility and smaller government for greater individual liberty. Porkulus fails on both counts, which is why the House GOP maintained a solid wall of opposition to it. Specter, Snowe, and Collins apparently don’t share those values.

But in this case, the betrayal goes beyond core values. Despite Barack Obama’s demagoguery earlier in the week, many Republicans wanted a big stimulus package to come out of Congress as quickly as possible. Given the chance, Republican partnership would have produced a bill with less long-term spending, more short-term spending, better tax cuts, and a huge reduction in the health-care bureaucracy that comprised almost half of Porkulus. Such a bill would have easily received a hundred Republican votes or more in the House and may have passed on acclamation in the Senate, and it would have sent a message of unity in a time of economic crisis.

In order to get that, Republicans had to shut down Porkulus. It would have forced Democrats to negotiate with Republicans and get the better bill to Obama’s desk.

Semi-related: there is now an active group of Nevadans who want to mobilize and finally dump Harry Reid for good. There are even rumors that Mitt Romney will move to Nevada and take care of this himself—and he’d be the guy to do it, too.

We have got to clean up the Senate; even a few seats would make a huge difference. (Although by 2010 the economy will have worked its magic, and we’ll be looking to gain more than that.)

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