Note from John: This is Mitch McConnel's Hurricane Katrina moment. The economic disaster has already been forecast, the storm has begun, and McConnell, like his mentor George Bush, is out to lunch, acting like it's just another day. We're going to name this next Depression after the Republicans who dawdled while our economy fell off the cliff. Politics is more important to the Republicans than our very survival.
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The GOP Senators, led by Mitch McConnell, have enabled the Bush administration's domestic and international disasters for the past eight years. McConnell is trying to further destroy the already fragile U.S. economy by continuing the same obstructionist games:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voiced skepticism today about the emerging economic stimulus plan, applying a brake to Democratic plans to quickly pass up to $850 billion in spending and tax cuts soon after President-elect Barack Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration.The Senate Republicans have been the most destructive political force in the country. They're not changing the way they do business. And, for some reason, despite the loss of 25% of the GOP Senate caucus over the past two years, McConnell thinks the same strategy will work now.
"As of right now, Americans are left with more questions than answers about this unprecedented government spending, and I believe the taxpayers deserve to know a lot more about where it will be spent before we consider passing it," McConnell said in a statement, which will be publicly issued later today.
Obama's advisers and congressional Democrats have been huddling in the Capitol trying to craft a massive stimulus plan that could cost anywhere from $675 billion to $850 billion, while some economists are pushing for a total package worth more than $1 trillion.
McConnell -- the most powerful Republican in Washington, based on the filibuster-proof level of 41 GOP Senate seats -- called for many congressional hearings on the stimulus plan and some undetermined safeguards to assure the money is being spent wisely.
Seems that Mitch McConnell didn't get the memo about the new post-partisan era in which we're living. The symbolism of homophobe Rick Warren delivering the invocation at the inauguration was supposed to show McConnell that D.C. is a different place now and we all have to get along. Apparently not. (But, surely Warren will call McConnell and the other Republican Senators to get them on board with Obama's agenda, right?)
Post-partisanship only works when both sides do it and we're seeing that isn't going to happen.
