Enough with the "No we Can't" Legislative analysis

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

A very common sentiment these days is that even if a larger stimulus was needed it was obviously politically impossible.

"Look at how they reacted to 850 billion. No way anything larger could have passed."

This assumes that all congresspeople have well-formed economic policy ideas. They don't. These people did not crunch the numbers and determine an independent economic optimum. It's not like master economists Jim Webb or Susan Collins calculated amounts they thought were economically ideal. They just put their finger in the air, listened to some wing-nuts calling their office... got the sense of their constituencies.

They would have hectored 500 billion or reached a bitter "compromise" on 1.5 trillion. Nobody knows what a trillion dollars is so these congresspeople are voting perceptions, not real numbers.

We have spent a trillion dollars in Iraq with almost no funding opposition from either party because Iraq is viewed as something you just have to fund. There are few, if any, legislators would would shovel a trillion into Iraq but draw the line at 1.5 trillion, just as there were very few who thought it okay to spend 500 billion in Iraq but drew the line at a trillion.

The point about the centrists is that they have no economic theory beyond self-congratulatory centrism. They would have whittled 500 billion down to 450 and whittled 1.5 trillion down to 1.25. They would have whittled a ten dollar stimulus plan down to $9.00.

It's not about the numbers, it's about whether something is perceived as a "must fund" priority. And that is a matter of leadership, planning and and mode of presentation.

What was, and continues to be needed, is to convince people that these actions are directly connected to the crisis everyone believes is very real.

When you have a very popular president who is a first-rate politician and was elected to do something dramatic you have the prerequisites to move a big daring package. All that was required was 1) convincing people it was necessary and 2) asking for it.

To say, "Congress didn't feel like voting for a bigger package" is like saying, "My troops don't feel like fighting today." Of course they don't! All things being equal, few people really want to get shot and few congresspeople want to add a trillion dollars to the deficit.

If leadership was about getting people to do whatever they would do anyway it wouldn't be a very useful trait.

[Thrill]

1. "No we Can't" "This isn't Change we can Believe in"

I so sick of this shit. Even moreso when I hear Democrats use those pathetic RW nuts phrases everytime something is done they don't agree with. Its getting old already

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. Some may be equally sick of your incessant inane comments on things you probably don't even read.

[babylonsister]

2. The rethugs have shown that nothing would have been a 'must fund'

priority. I think we're lucky to get this package in the first month of our new president's admin.

And it's wonderful so many Americans trust what President Obama is doing.