Paul Krugman on the Obama stimulus package:
This really does look like a plan that falls well short of what advocates of strong stimulus were hoping for — and it seems as if that was done in order to win Republican votes. Yet even if the plan gets the hoped-for 80 votes in the Senate, which seems doubtful, responsibility for the plan’s perceived failure, if it’s spun that way, will be placed on Democrats.
I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.”
Let’s hope I’ve got this wrong.
But then again, he’s the one with the Nobel Prize in economics. So there’s that.
Why do they need (or want) 80 votes in the Senate. Isn’t 51 enough?
One assumes they want some demonstration of ‘bipartisan’ support. Therefore, the useless tax cuts and gimme’s to corporations. The repukes are still gonna drag their feet, it’s going to be too little too late, and the corporate media will blame the D’s. How else can the Village quell populist sentiment?