Reply #53: A small inaccuracy and a note on how this could have been handled [View All]

[jtuck004]

"And they had to concede on a whole host of extensions of stimulus measures that they did not vote for in the first place and want to oppose again. "

Those stimulus measures were added to GAIN their votes when it passed last year - why is seen as giving them something when they were already given it once? And that is a matter of public record, though I'm too tired of the griping to look it up.

It's not like this was a big secret that these were expiring. Most people have known for 10 years that it had an expiration date.

Months ago the administration and a few members of congress could have started building support for the 98% to keep their cuts, and offered to give the Republicans credit for continuing the "whole host of stimulus measures" that the Repubs liked a couple years ago. People could have been telephoning, and writing, and being educated that - in a time when we have hit record levels of food stamps, when 30 million people are unemployed or underemployed and need our industrial capacity revamped to compete in the modern era, when teachers and firefighters and police are being laid off, states are going bankrupt - it might be unpopular to give the wealthy a couple hundred extra billion on top of the $700 billion they already got in the past 10 years.

Instead, they waited till the very last minute and run around saying there was no other way, the president says he won't sign off on extensions, and then they all go in a room and out comes...this.

That's bad management.