Paul Krugman: "It's time for Obama to go on the offensive"

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Fri Feb-06-09 03:37 PM
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Paul Krugman: "It's time for Obama to go on the offensive"

New York Times
Op-Ed Columnist
On the Edge
By PAUL KRUGMAN
February 5, 2009

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clich�s about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.

It�s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened � yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there�s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.

Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won�t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that�s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective � to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts � are so destructive.

So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It�s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation�s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

Please read the entire article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06krugman.html?_r=2

It's starting to look like President Obama is getting the message on the futility of "bi-partisan" collaboration with the Republican party and finally has begun going on the offensive. This is not time to let up! They want to destroy the Obama administration and they want to destroy it soon!

Obama has started to act like the leader of the Democratic Party and the nation with his recent comments regarding the economic recovery package. That's good. And it's time to step it up and not agree to the devastating cuts proposed by some conservative Democrats and their Republican friends in the Senate. The "bi-partisan" proposal to cut vital program while spending billions more for the Pentagon should be rejected by the Senate.

And once again, let's reject the political nonsense that claims 60 votes are needed in the Senate to pass legislation. That wasn't true under George W. Bush and it isn't true under President Obama.

60 votes are needed to break a real Republican filibuster (let them hang themselves) and 51 votes are needed to pass legislation.