I believe this is a variation on Parkinson's law. Debate expands to fill whatever time is allotted for it. Enough already. Vote. If today's jobs report isn't enough to convince any wavering Senators, nothing will.

If the Congressional Dems would just go on all the cable TeeVee shows and hammer the points President Obama made last night (Stimulus *is* spending, that's the point; there are too tax cuts in the bill, targeted to people who might credibly go out and spend it; changing the federal fleet to more green ones and weatherizing homes is an awesome three-fer: create jobs, decrease energy consumption and wean us off foreign oil; 36 Rethugs voted for a bill that is tax-cuts only: same old, failed policy) then people might actually learn about the other view point.

As it is, Rethugs and their media enablers are the only ones talking -- ceding the debate and then crying about the consequences is just way too stupid.

President Obama cannot show up on all these shows going up against every Rethug cong critter -- the numbers of them can be matched only by the dems in congress. Especially, house members who are now free, need to get their mugs on TeeVee and drill in the sane viewpoint.

So by all means, call your senator and holler if you saw something on the list of potential cuts that concerns you.

All of the cuts concern me. I don't think these centerist jackasses get the concept that the States are falling apart and badly need Cash simply to stay in business. The money in the bill isn't even enough to get that done.

What's going to happen is that Obama is going to push even more money through in budget appropiations. But at least 600K people lost their jobs in January, and we're not close to the bottom.

If Obama wants to play the Bipartasan game, he should dump House and Senate GOP and instead go to the State GOP - governors like Arnold, Jindal and Crist. Not just them, but key Dem Govs like Rendell, Strickland, Kaine, Perdue, Schweitzer, Nixon, etc. Call them into the White House for a big photo shoot, and then send them back out to their Home States and also on the airwaves to pimp that it's needed.

The Obama Team seems to have lost sight of the Ground Game, and that there are valuable people out there.

John

When did we get to the point that 60 was the magical number? Here I always thought it took a majority. We're moving the goal posts.

http://www.pufferfishblog.com/

I second Elana's emotion on calling Senators but I'd add tax cuts to your bitch lists.

If the question is waste and size, let's cut the re-inflate the housing bubble tax cut which ballooned from 18 billion at passage to 36 billion the day after

The Congressional Progressives bark remains less fearsome than the Blue Dog's bite

If this thing is heading for the Senate side toilets, might as well join in

One of the biggest problems here is that Harry Reid as Majority Leader is a joke. He leads nothing, he leads nobody and he leads nowhere.

Somebody ought to make him read Robert Caro's book on how to "lead" the Senate, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Maybe Harry would absorb a nugget or two and figure out how to get something done.

Not sure about Harry Reid being the biggest problem.

Unfortunately, we're looking for synergy, democratic synergy between all governing bodies, executive, legislative and judicial all at once and it's going to take time.

If they don't figure it out by day's end, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will do what I suspected he'd ultimately have to -- move to cut off debate on the bill entirely, setting up a Sunday vote that will test all this talk of resistance from centrists on both sides.

At this point, I wonder how Democrats can support this stupid anymore? Harry Reid and Joe blow turned into crap that nobody should vote for.