Specter On GOP Caucus: 'The Pressure Was Tremendous On Everybody Not To Participate'

Now, Arlen put your money where your mouth is and go out and campaign for Democrats, telling voters what your former party did.

Unanimity is as unnatural for Democrats as independant thought is unnatural to Republicans.

You bet the Republican obstructionism made health care reform nearly impossible.

The way around is to attach bits of health care reform to every war-funding bill. Either we get the reform, or we can honestly say Republicans and blue-dogs refused to vote to fund our soldiers in a war.

I am shocked, shocked I tell you!...ok maybe not. Although what they should have done was call them on the whole filibuster thing, and let the Right's obstructionist tactics be seen as the reason the government shut down completely.

I'm just glad he dumped on Snowe.

this is nothing new...we saw in the bush administration that the republicans are only interested in political power...not actually governing. what many saw as total incompetence was actually total disinterest. why do the hard work of governing the country when you can go for a bike ride?

with all due respect eric, i call bullshit. This is nothing more than specter polishing his image, especially with regard to the stimulus.

As a pennsylvania voter, let me tell you the TRUTH about Arlen Specter and the stimulus. Arlen insisted on massive cuts to the package before he voted for it, cuts that robbed PA of almost 100% of the money needed to fill its budget gap: http://youngphillypolitics.com/arlen_specter039s_responsibility_pennsylvania_budget_crisis

Specter didn’t get all of the cuts he wanted, but he was sure happy he was ‘able to cut 100 billion from the package.’ And what was one of the cuts he was successful in getting? 40 billion dollars for the state stabilization fund. In other words, 40 billion dollars in direct payment from the Federal Government to the states to help them with their huge budget problems.

According to Pa’s share of the national population, Arlen Specter’s Recovery Act cuts cost Pennsylvania about 1.6 billion dollars, or almost the entire gap between Rendell’s original budget proposal, and SB 850. Since then, the budget gap has grown. But even now, it would be halved if Arlen Specter didn’t slash the Recovery Act.

As the link details, with a citation, "Specter in fact lamented that we couldn’t have slashed all spending from the Recovery Act."

The guy is a phony and doesn't deserve the credit he's getting. he would have slashed ALL spending from the stimulus if he could have. Several non-profits and human services orgs took a major hit, and he hurt the citizens of PA, including the handicapped, adult learners, and the elderly.

THAT is what Specter did.