What the Porkulus Betrayal Means February 16 2009
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has a pretty solid criticism of the three Republican stimulus defectors that warrants some kudos, and of course, my own two cents.
Cap’t Ed (bold added):
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.
[snip]
Instead, Specter, Collins, and Snowe essentially stabbed their colleagues in the back — while Specter whined about the lack of debate on the bill, after he voted for cloture and an end to debate.
As frustrating as the betrayal was, perhaps even more frustrating was the almost Bush-like non-response to these spurious attacks from our Republican leaders.
I am really tired of yelling at my TV. I mean, David Axelrod is probably due to set a record for MTP appearances, and nobody was there to counter. There needs to be a bold and unambiguous rebuttal of all the garbage spewing from the left, and it has to be on the turf of the mainstream media.
Time and time again we heard about how the Republicans want to do nothing, or the danger of doing nothing is too great, but I don’t recall seeing many elected officials actually calling for inaction. The other unanswered talking point criticized “the policies of the last eight years” in an absurd conflation of fiscal policy and regulatory policy. (If you want to argue the regulatory issues knock yourselves out, but that has nothing to do with tax or spending policy except in Obama’s ideologically rigid mind.) Somebody needs to be there to say “there you go again”, and we’re continuing to drop the ball.
Ed concludes:
The GOP needs them to offer an illusory chance at filibustering legislation, although their failure to filibuster something as bad as Porkulus more or less exposes that as an empty threat. Republicans need to find credible primary opponents for these three, even if it means losing the seats, because after Porkulus it appears they’re already lost.
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