Congressional Republicans and 11 Democrats Vote NO!
January 29, 2009
Although most of the Democrats voted NO on the stimulus package in the House because they want to get re-elected, not because they have any convictions that this is right or wrong, but we have to give them credit for doing the right thing!
According to US News And World Report, 1/29/2009:
By: Michael Barone
The House voted almost entirely on partisan lines to pass the stimulus package that, slightly amended, came out of the House Appropriations Committee. It passed without a single Republican vote and with 11 Democratic votes against, from Allen Boyd (FL 2), Bobby Bright (AL 2), Jim Cooper (TN 5), Brad Ellsworth (IN 8), Parker Griffith (AL 5), Paul Kanjorski (PA 11), Frank Kratovil (MD 1), Walt Minnick (ID 1), Collin Peterson (MN 7), Heath Shuler (NC 11), and Gene Taylor (MS 4). They break into several categories. Boyd and Cooper are “blue dogs” by conviction who represent state capital districts (Tallahassee, Nashville) that wouldn’t have minded pro-stimulus votes. Bright, Griffith, Kratovil, and Minnick won their seats in 2008 in Republican-leaning districts. Ellsworth and Shuler won their seats in 2006 in Republican-leaning districts. Kanjorski is an old-timer who was pressed in the 2008 election. Taylor is a temperamental Jacksonian maverick elected in the Gulf Coast Mississippi district who mostly votes like a Republican but wears no man’s collar. Peterson is a committee chairman (Agriculture) who represents a rural district that, despite historic DFL roots, has recently been the most Republican district in Minnesota in presidential elections. It took some guts, in my view, for Boyd, Cooper, and Peterson to cast these votes.
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor makes the point in this pre-roll call interview with Marc Ambinder that the stimulus package should include more tax cuts and less government spending. He seems to have public opinion on his side. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that 53 percent of Americans believe that it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending, while only 24 percent disagree.
But Barone can not let it go. He goes on to pump up Obama’s image by saying the defeat was really a win for the President… How does he justify it??? :
Was this a failure of President Obama’s professed desire for bipartisanship? On the surface, yes. But I think you have to give Obama some credit for journeying to Capitol Hill to talk with House Republicans. He listened respectfully, and although he didn’t press the House Democratic leaders for more than one or two small concessions—they dropped funding for contraceptives, an item that was clearly a source of political embarrassment—he did at least listen.
…and then continues by bashing Bush’s administration. He sounds like a child, “That’s more than Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson did in the first days when he was trying to get the $700 billion TARP package passed.” Is this reporting or is it editorial and opinion??? Barone seems to be a useful idiot for liberals.
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