Seriously, who cares what John McCain thinks?
The Arizona Republican says the $787 billion measure will create what he calls "generational theft" — huge federal deficits for years to come.Start where? Let's review: John McCain was one of 36 Republicans to vote for Senator Jim DeMint's amendment to remove ALL spending from the economic recovery package. Krugman, who called the GOP Senators who voted against the stimulus package "the crazy 36" noted that DeMint's amendment:
McCain, who lost the presidential race to Obama, says the president is backtracking on promises of bipartisanship. McCain is not happy with the process that led to passage of the stimulus bill. He calls it a bad beginning to Obama's presidency.
McCain acknowledges that Republicans excluded Democrats when the GOP held power on Capitol Hill. But he says Obama had promised to work differently.
McCain offers this advice: "Let's start over now and sit down together."
would have replaced $800 billion of stimulus with $3.1 trillion of non-stimulative tax cuts. These, by the way, are the same people now accusing Obama of engaging in “generational theft.”Crazy. But, that's John McCain's terminology.
How can Obama negotiate with people who really are that extreme? It was actually the Republicans, including McCain, who excluded themselves from the deliberations because of their adherence to Bush's failed economic philosophy.
And, lest we forget, John McCain never really got the magnitude of the economic crisis, which is one reason that he isn't president. Remember, McCain still thought the fundamentals of our economy were strong on September 15, 2008, the day we learned Lehman Brothers disappeared:
