Steele = Hoover.

Michael Steele's "power" has gone to his head. He's RNC chairman, nothing more. He seems to think he is the shadow President or something. I think the guy is going to be a train wreck.

McConnell and Boehner don't believe the Dem's plan will work, however don't realize that everybody knows their way doesn't work. it's what got America into the current mess. I hope the Dems have their unabashed liberals on the Sunday Talkies tomorrow, because I want Dems on the offensive. I want the GOP challenged as to why their tax cut idea, proven ineffective under the Bush Administration, is still their broken record mantra. I want them to defend Defense spending and how they were a rubber stamp to anything and everything Bush wanted.

Sebelius' senate polling numbers is why I don't want her in the Obama cabinet - her name is coming up for the HHS post opening.

I think Obama's got more dogs in this hunt than he's letting on or we know about.

Regardless of what is and isn't in the bill, I think we have two problems here:

1) We're so used to an inept Bush administration and a GOP congress that followed it blindly that we're having a hard time adjusting to an administration that knows what it's doing and a Dem majority that just doesn't blindly follow whatever Dear Leader puts forward. It makes for messier but better government. And we're also not used to a president who a) doesn't play to win every news cycle and b) plays the long game. So we - and I'm as guilty as anybody - worry when everything doesn't work perfectly in the first 3 weeks of the Obama presidency. Smart money says that Obama has a long-term game plan and he's only in the first two minutes of the first quarter of that plan.

2) The GOP is out of power and their only option is to play the opposition. I think they're wrong for going the obstructionist route, but here's the problem....the GOP folks left in Congress - outside of folks like (not coincidentally) Collins, Snowe, and Specter - are from conservative districts/states. If they don't follow the wingnut gameplan 100% - even if they don't agree with it - they know they'll get a call from Norquist and/or Toomey informing them that their ass is going to be primaried in the next election. The challengers will obviously be crazy people who will ultimately lose the seat to a Dem candidate (except in places Utah and Wyoming), but while there aren't enough of these crazy people to win a GE, they can send a less crazy GOP incumbent home. This makes it difficult to expect the less crazy/moderate Republicans to act normal. The good news for the Dems is that ultimately, this will doom the GOP to minority status for a generation. The bad news is that the country suffers in the meantime because the Dems in Congress are still, inexplicably, afraid of these lunatics, lunatics who were just rejected big time by the voters just 3 months ago. They'll rid themselves of this fear someday, but it may take a year or two. Until then, we have a Congress that acts like the Dems don't have a huge majority in both houses, backed up by a popular Dem president who still have 4-years left on his term.

I've got a question. Is TPM going to investigate Michael Steele? This guy looks like he completely lives up to his last name.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/06/AR2009020604151.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

Comment like Steele's ensures that every out of work, or soon to be out of work, person becomes a Democrat.

You can't keep more of what you earn if you have no earnings.

Yes, I've been laid off and I'm basically screwed.

Republicans have trouble understanding national governance, and a bill like this, because the roots of republicanism and the tenets explicated by Aristotle are based upon small homogeneous political entities. Tax cuts may "enpower" the individual as Steele puts if there is a small group of individuals who have a like minded perspective and hence a common good in mind that they could leverage that money towards. Obviously, because the United States government presides over some 300 million people, it's impossible, and generally absurd to think that this principle could coherently apply at the Federal level. This is also why the rhetoric of patriotism is so strong with Republicans, and subsequently why they have trouble understanding how people may have different conceptions of what that term specifically means. I'm quite confident that they are projecting this ideal onto the national stage and don't comprehend how the difference of scale, and the inherent plurality of interests that comes with it, renders their ideology to be rather impotent.
I think that comments about Obama's strategic outlook are correct. The debate that this has stimulated is something we haven't had, period, for quite some time. I also think that Obama, understanding the nature of how legislature is crafted, was conscious of the fact that an initial imperfect bill could be refined to acceptability through the legislative process. In doing so, he could achieve his goals in a relatively short period, and now set the tone for future bills that he would like to enact. As comments about the campaign revealed, his more than aware that news cycles usually aren't reporting about the reality of the situation, but a self-perpetuating discourse that maintains there legitimacy. People have used the chess analogy, and as a fan of the game I would like to elaborate. When I'm watching grandmasters play, I look at the position, and after a move is made, internally exclaim, why didn't he take the pawn, I don't get it. Then as I delve into the nuisances further, I see that it usually involves many strategic, and tactic, misunderstandings of the position. These knee jerk like reactions are understandable, and Obama's tactics at times may not be to our liking (He's a positional player, we want the tactical flair of Kasparov).
With regards to Steele, the guy seems like an opportunist plain and simple.

"The fastest way to help those families is by letting them keep more of the money they earn," says Steele.

Um, unemployed people don't earn money, Mr. Steele. Tax cuts don't create jobs; spending does.

Tax cuts never created any jobs.

President Obama and his economic team, and even the entire political class in this country, are suffering from collective myopic vision in viewing and tackling the current economic downturn. 2009 is not 1932 but they are trying to apply 1930's prescription to tackle the 2009 problems when the country had undergone a sea-change in its economic activities during the intervening seven decades. During the earlier era, almost everything this country's population needed - even articles like bedspreads, towels, pillowcases, children's clothes and toys etc. were manufactured within the country. Today nearly 90 per cent of the items sold in WalMart and Target stores come from China and elsewhere. Add to them all the consumer electronics, home furniture, etc. Any money which will be put in the hands of the general population by way of tax cuts and rebates will straightaway go into purchase of goods manufactured in other countries and will, possibly, ameliorate the economic situation in China, Mexico and other countries and certainly not here. The manufacturing jobs that had gone overseas are gone for good; they will never come back, let us have no illusions about it. No amount of exhortations, like King Canute stopping the tide, will bring them back. This country, at the prevailing per hour labor costs, cannot afford to manufacture most of the everyday items and even other more expensive durable goods within the country any more. This applies also equally to the services sector like software development and maintenance. As for the stimulus which is sought to be induced by building/renovating highways and by spending billions on creating other infrastructure, they may all be completed within 2-3 years from the date they are started. After that, what next? What will happen to the jobs which are now created in such shot-gun scatter-shot fashion? Are we going to tear down the roads and buildings already built and re-build them again? Or, are we going to begin building bridges to nowhere?

There should be a completely revolutionary change in the mindset of the "experts" who are now entrusted with the task of lifting the country out of the economic morass into which it has fallen. Otherwise, the trillion+ dollars of the stimulus plan will inevitably go down the drain.

For those who haven't seen it, here's Obama's video that they put out SATURDAY...

http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/recoveryvid

Looked for it on Friday but it arrived on Saturday...

Part of it is understanding the Republicans' goal. Their primary interest is in funneling money to their rich friends. If anyone else benefits, that is just icing on the cake. But they are indifferent to the plight of the bottom 99% of the population.

Their economic plan consists of giving trillions of dollars to the banksters, who then pay themselves multi-million dollar bonuses, which ideally are not taxed.

Of course the Republican tax plans have worked in ways they never intended. People who are unemployed, whose retirement and other investments have crashed also pay fewer taxes. One way of reducing taxes is to reduce employement and wages!