The Redhunter

I also see almost no downside to our current course of action. There is near zero chance this bill will perform as advertised, so it's not as if we're missing out on enjoying the political benefits of success. Further, when the effect on the budget deficit becomes clear we have to be on record as having opposed it. For the past several years we have been on the wrong side of this issue. Better now than never.

As for President Obama's much ballyhooed attempt at bipartisanship with Republicans, please. He couldn't even keep all Democrats on board. 11 Democrats in the House, including my favorite, former Washington Redskins quarterback Heath Shuler (D - NC, 11th District)., voted against the bill.

It is therefore amusing to see some liberals and Democrats so upset about Republican opposition. If their bill does what they say it will, then they'll be able to say "see I told you so," won't they? What I think is driving their rage is more just incomprehension that anyone could not be wild about their messiah. I encountered this attitude a week ago while supporting our troops at our weekly rally outside Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and it is indeed a thing to behold.

Details, Details

A few tidbits on the Democrat bill from the website of the House GOP

• The legislation's spending portion contains $355.9 billion in discretionary domestic spending to expand existing programs throughout the federal government. Spending meant to stimulate the economy under this title includes funding for a wide variety of programs ranging from climate change research, federal building repair, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Federal Highway Administration, AmeriCorps, and nurse and physician training.
• The refundable spending, which is scored by CBO as direct spending, totals $79.9 billion over five years. Unlike long-term, growth-oriented tax cuts that have been offered by Republicans as an alternative to this plan, these refundable tax credits are more akin to increased spending through the tax code.
• According to CBO, the federal deficit will rise to a record $1.2 trillion, or 8.3% of GDP, in 2009. Even without this massive bill, the deficit will be by far the highest on record nominally and as a percentage of GDP during peacetime, easily exceeding the previousrecord of 6% in 1983 and the highest New Deal level of 5.9% in 1934.
• According to CBO, most of the $356 billion in discretionary spending provided will not actually be spent until after 2010. In fact, only 8.1% of the spending will take place in 2009.
• Despite calls by Democrats for increased infrastructure spending to create jobs, a relatively small share of the total $825 billion package is devoted to transportation infrastructure--$44 billion or 5.3% and only $30 billion or 3.6% for highway construction.

Keep in mind that candidate Barack Obama promised to go through the federal budget line by line and cut out wasteful spending. In fact, it's still on his website. Go see for yourself.

Obama and Biden review the federal budget line by line and eliminate programs that don't work or are unnecessary.

Guess that campaign promise is already out the window.

And if you think this level of spending is bad, keep in mind that last week Obama told GOP Rep. Frank Lucas (OK-3rd) that he thought that FDR's problem was that he didn't spend enough money on his New Deal projects. Sheesh.

Now, some details on the GOP alternative:

• Cut the lowest two income tax rates for 2009 and 2010, from 15 percent to 10 percent and from 10 percent to 5 percent.
• Extend through 2010 a patch to the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was originally designed to ensure that wealthy people pay taxes, but instead would hit millions of middle-income families with higher taxes.
• Expand the $7,500 first-time homebuyers tax credit for a principal residence to all homebuyers while limiting it to purchasers who can make a down payment of at least 5 percent of the purchase price.
• Provide a tax deduction for small businesses with less than 500 employees equal to 20 percent of their income.
• Offer new tax deduction for those who do not receive tax-preferred, employer-sponsored health care coverage. And provide assistance to the unemployed who do not qualify for a COBRA premium subsidy.
• Give tax exemption on unemployment benefits and extend temporary federal unemployment benefits through 2009, phasing it out through mid-2010.
• Allow companies to write off current losses against previous tax years for up to five years. Companies now can only "carry back" losses for two years. The tax break would not be available to banks and other companies receiving help from the $700 billion bailout package.
• Extend through 2009 a break for small businesses that allows them to immediately write off up certain capital expenditures.

One time rebate checks do not work. It was wrong when President Bush did it and it would be wrong today. For tax cuts to work they have to incent people to change their behavior in a way that lasts. Only if people think that they will have more money in their pocket in the future will they spend in ways the boost the economy.

A bit more about the Democrat's bill from the editors of National Review

Consider the $18.5 billion proposed for renewable-energy projects, less than $3 billion of which would be spent by 2011. Even if we conceded, for argument's sake, that the initial $3 billion would boost the economy in the short run by putting people to work and increasing demand for things like steel and concrete, why should we agree to spend the additional $15.5 billion when we do not share the green lobby's passion for such projects? Clearly, the extra money is being ramrodded through Congress in the guise of "economic stimulus," though it is actually the opposite of that.

Or consider the $30 billion proposed for highway spending, less than $4 billion of which would be spent by 2011. Again, accepting the questionable premise that the first $4 billion is necessary for economic recovery, why pile on $26 billion needlessly?...

Perhaps most egregious is the $80 billion "State Fiscal Stabilization Fund," intended to bail out those states that promised more in Medicaid and other welfare benefits than they had revenue to pay for. Just over $30 billion of the money would be spent by 2011. The rest is reserved for the years 2011 and 2012, with allocations stretching into the year 2019. This is not a stimulus plan. It is an invitation to states to engage in politically popular but unaffordable overspending for years to come.

Man of Steele

No, he's not "our Barack Obama" and I don't think any conservative sees him that way. He is, rather, a smart, articulate conservative who most of all is the fresh face that we know we need. I think I've got a pretty good ear from what conservatives want, both nationally and here locally, and the vast majority of us want to toss the "old guard" and bring in a new generation.

While driving to work in the morning I have had the chance to hear Michael Steele guest host Bill Bennett's morning radio show, and have been impressed every time. He will be the opposite of Howard Dean or Terry McAuliffe, two DNC chairmen who in my opinion came across poorly. Dean was just a ranting nut and McAuliffe too aggressive in an intimidating way. On the other side, our ourgoing chairman, Mike Duncan, was clearly ineffective.

Here is Steele making his acceptance speech:

His Blueprint for Tomorrow seems pretty on target for what we need. Importantly, he doesn't blame Democrats for our problems:

We squandered the trust of voters with a stunning display of spending and government growth that might have made a Democrat blush.

Public opinion polling is very clear on this point, it can best be summed up by these results from a recent national survey by Gallup:

• 34% say they have a favorable view of the Republican Party, 61% have an unfavorable view
• 55% say they have a favorable view of the Democrat party, 39% have an unfavorable view

Just as troubling, a majority of voters view our party as more closely tied to the corruption in Washington and the greed on Wall Street than to the interests on Main Street.

The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.

I've observed and more recently participated in politics for over 30 years. It's great when your side wins and it stinks when you lose. I've learned, though, to be careful in both instances because things can turn on a dime. Surveying Bill Clinton's victory in 1992, few if any conservatives would have predicted our stunning success a mere two years later. For that matter we didn't think that we'd lose as bad as we did in 1998.

Perhaps oddly, then, I am optimistic about the future of conservatism and the Republican Party. It's far to early to say where all this will go, as Obama is a smart man who will learn from his mistakes. But this joke of a stimulus was a bad start, written as it was by Democrats in Congress

Monday Evening Update

Democrat Senator Ben Nelson (NB) says that wants to cut tens of billions from the stimulus bill, "rejecting the White House claim that senators are complaining about just a tiny fraction of the package."

President Obama does not seem to know what to do. This bill is spiraling out of control, with half the public not believing it will help the economy. A few Democrats in the Senate seem to have figured this out.

The Democrats need to get this thing passed quickly, because time is not on their side. The more this thing lingers the more information about how much pork it contains will come out.

Kevin Hassett, writing at Bloomberg, has the goods

When the stimulus package, the SCHIP expansion and whatever else our representatives in Washington dream up are on the books, it seems likely that the deficit for this year will approach $1.7 trillion. This is an enormous swing in the U.S. fiscal condition.

Under President George W. Bush -- a big spender in his own right -- the federal budget deficit reached a record $455 billion in fiscal 2008, more than double a year earlier. Government bailouts of banks and other industries that started under Bush, and may accelerate under President Barack Obama, will help push the deficit toward that $1.7 trillion mark.

That is $1.7 trillion in future taxes. Nobody knows exactly when the tax hike will come. It might even be that we shall try to foist the costs on our children. Still, those planning their financial futures should account for the dramatically higher taxes that will be the result of this year's policies.