This is the first I’ve heard of this. But this jumped out at me in an article on the CNN website about the Stimulus Bill in the senate …
The sources say Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, wants a “smaller, narrower” bill. Another group of Republicans including Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is working to craft a larger package that would include more infrastructure spending.
Generally, the sources say, the party is looking for more concessions from the White House on spending.
This is pretty bare on details. But what that seems to say is that there are a number of Republicans who want a bill with a larger total price tag, with the extra spending weighted toward infrastructure spending (presumably transportation infrastructure spending since that’s usually what people are talking about when they use that shorthand.) In other words, Obama +, with the plus being mainly transportation infrastructure.
(Of course, maybe it’s just loose reporting and they really mean a bigger price tag with 2/3 tax cuts and 1/3 roads. Who knows?)
I’d put this squarely in the ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ category. And it would not match up very well with the spending policies Sen. McCain was campaigning on last Fall. But if something like this were true, I would think you’d get a significant number of Democrats interested in moving in that direction.
Of course, very big ‘if’. But we’ll see.
Norm Coleman’s legal team has denied they were cherry-picking rejected absentee voters for Coleman supporters — but one of those Coleman voters just admitted on the witness stand that he himself was cherry-picked by the Coleman team.
Yesterday I noted that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and fellow House Republicans were claiming on the House floor that their alternative stimulus plan would create 6.2 million new jobs according to the White House’s own numbers. And I asked if anybody knew how they came up with that number. Well, it turns out, pretty much out of their backsides.
We checked with House sources and this is how they came up with that number.
A source who was at the White House signing ceremony today says Obama offered assurances that the family planning dollars stripped from the stimulus package will be back in an upcoming spending bill.
Roll Call says that Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican, is being considered for Commerce Secretary by the White House. Of course, New Hampshire has a Democratic governor who would presumably send another Democrat to Washington, becoming the Democrats’ sixtieth senator.
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick reviews all the new developments in the still-unfolding saga of U.S. torture policy: what a new administration signals for torture policy, the importance of Susan Crawford’s use of the word “torture,” and the significance of Obama’s executive order closing Guantanamo …
Full-size video at TPMtv.com.
Special thanks to Margaret Ho for putting this one together.
Disgraced ex-Congressman Wes Cooley (disgraced for lying about his military record) indicted for defrauding investors out of over $10 million in a scam right out of an episode of the Sopranos …
Cooley and co-conspirers sold unregistered stock of Bidbay.com Inc., of which he was vice president, under the false pretext that EBay Inc. would soon be buying the company for $20 a share, according to the statement. EBay never intended to buy Bidbay.com and had sued the company for trademark infringement, according to the statement.
And some more details here …
The indictment outlines a scheme in which Cooley, along with co-schemers George Tannous and De Elroy Beeler Jr., solicited hundreds of victims across the country to purchase unregistered stock in Bidbay.com, Inc. (also known as Auctiondiner.com, Inc.) and several related shell companies. Cooley was the vice president of Bidbay. The indictment alleges that victim investors were lured by several false statements, including claims that Bidbay.com and/or the shell companies would soon be acquired by Ebay, Inc. for $20 per share. Ebay never had any intention of acquiring Bidbay.com and had even sued Bidbay.com for trademark infringement over the use of “bay” in its name. Investors were also not told that Beeler, who was engaged in soliciting investors for Tannous and Cooley, was a convicted felon awaiting sentencing on unrelated fraud charges.
Martin Feldstein’s opposition to a Democratic Stimulus Bill wouldn’t normally be a big surprise, given his background as a conservative economist and advisor to President Reagan. But he’s been trotted out a lot recently for his support of the Obama plan. So it caught my eye when I saw his editorial in today’s Post coming out in opposition to the bill in its current form.
I’m not saying I agree with him. Actually there are a number of points I definitely disagree with him on. The points on capital gains taxes don’t add up to me. And he makes what strikes me as a poor argument that we should concentrate a lot of the spending on retooling and repairing the military after five years or war because the military is capable of much more rapidly doing procurement and getting new projects underway.
In terms of speed that may well be right. It sounds logical to me, though I don’t know myself. But one of the key fringe benefits of this vast spending has to be to make investments that will create greater efficiencies and possibilities for sustained growth in the future. New green energy stuff, transportation infrastructure, etc. Most military spending — whatever the merits in national security terms — just doesn’t get you that. At least not in any way I can see.
All that said, though, his critique is nothing like the Republican claptrap we’ve been hearing over recent days. In fact, in some respects it’s like stuff I’ve been hearing from Democrats. He’s critical of most of the tax cuts — judging them either inefficient as stimulus or just lump sum payments to businesses that are unlikely to reinvest it in a down economy . And he thinks the kinds of spending are not sufficiently targeted to maximize employment and spending into the economy. It’s worth a read.
Obama on Blago …
Today ends a painful episode for Illinois. For months, the state had been crippled by a crisis of leadership. Now that cloud has lifted. I wish Governor Quinn the best and pledge my full cooperation as he undertakes his new responsibilities.