Dems Pushing Stimulus II With No Details, No Transparency, And More Failed Binge Spending: Sound Familiar?

POLITICO: “Democrats Are Racing To Hash Out The Details Of A Jobs Bill By A Self-Imposed Monday Deadline …” (Lisa Lerer and Manu Raju, “Dems Race To Meet Jobs Bill Deadline,” Politico, 2/5/10)

DEMS LEAVING AMERICANS IN THE DARK ABOUT THEIR BINGE SPENDING, MAKING DEALS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS ON STIMULUS II …

Obama Setting Price Tag On Stimulus II, Willing To Add $100 Billion More To Deficit. “Legislation aimed at making it easier for companies to hire more workers is likely to cost about $100 billion, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.” (Jeff Plungis, “Obama’s Jobs Bill May Cost $100 Billion, Spokesman Gibbs Says,” Bloomberg, 2/1/10)

But “Democrats Offered Only The Bare Outlines Of Their Approach To Jobs Legislation ...” (Carl Hulse And Jeff Zeleny, “G.O.P. Seantor Is Sworn In, And Democrats Regroup,” The New York Times, 2/4/10)

Dems Won’t Say What’s In Stimulus II Until They All Agree. “The Democrats’ refusal to answer about specifics of the legislation’s funding — Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said repeatedly that those questions will be sorted out by Montana Sen. Max Baucus and the Finance Committee he chairs — underscores the pressure they feel to move on the new top priority. Yet it also shows Democrats are far from consensus within their own caucus on exactly what a jobs package will look like.” (Meredith Shiner, “Democrats Coy About Jobs Bill Costs,” Politico, 2/4/10)

Dems Have Been Working Behind Closed Doors For “More Than A Month” Without Any Agreement. “Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Dick Durbin of Illinois have been working intensely on a jobs bill for more than a month, talking with relevant committee leaders and other members and dispatching aides to dozens of other meetings in the hopes of crafting a bill that could get through the Senate quickly… And when they walked into a meeting in the office of Reid (D-Nev.) on Jan. 22, they thought they were about to cross the finish line — the Dorgan-Durbin plan would be blessed by the small group of senators in the room …” (Manu Raju and Meredith Shiner, “Democrats Squabble Over Jobs Bill,” Politico, 2/1/10)

JUST AS THEY TRIED TO DO WITH THEIR GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE EXPERIMENT

Dems Willing To Spend $2.5 Trillion On Government-Run Health Care Experiment. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT): “Just for a second -- health care reform, whether you use a ten-year number or when you start in 2010 or start in 2014, wherever you start at, so it is still either $1 trillion or it’s $2.5 trillion, depending on where you start...” (Sen. Max Baucus, Floor Remarks, 12/2/09)

Obama Resorted To Secret Meetings When Pushing Government Takeover Of Health Care. “[T]he administration’s multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies have been made in private, and the results were announced after the fact. Both industries promised Obama cost savings in return for an expanded base of insured patients; beyond that, the public is in the dark about details.” (Sharon Theimer, “Promises, Promises: Do Obama Deals Break Pledge?” The Associated Press, 7/21/09)

And Sen. Harry Reid Left Many Of His Fellow Democrats In The Dark About Deals Made On Government-Run Health Care. “Senate Democrats said on Wednesday that they were not sure exactly what was in a deal that the majority leader said would surmount a disagreement over a proposed government-run health plan … ‘General concepts, but nothing very specific at all,’ said Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, who was in the group of 10. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said: ‘There was no explanation. It was sort of go team, go.’” (David M. Herszenhorn & Robert Pear, “Senate Democrats See Room For Hope On Health Care Bill,” The New York Times, 12/10/09)

• Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL): “I Would Say To The Senator From Arizona, That I’m In The Dark Almost As Much As He Is. And I’m In The Leadership.” (Sen. Dick Durbin, Floor Remarks, 12/11/09)
  
  
• Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL): “I Don’t Know What The Deal Is.”  (Shailagh Murray & Lori Montgomery, “Senate Democrats Largely Support Health-Care Deal That Drops Public Option,” The Washington Post, 12/10/09)
  
  
• Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN): “We’re All Being Urged To Vote For Something And We Don’t Know The Details Of What’s In It.” (David Lightman, “Obama Might Not Get Health Care Overhaul For Christmas,” McClatchy, 12/15/09)

IT’S CLEAR DEMS HAVEN’T LEARNED THE LESSONS OF MASSACHUSETTS …

Dems’ Backroom Deals On Government-Run Health Care “Hit A Nerve” With Massachusetts Voters. “‘That Nebraska thing is really hurting us,’ former President Bill Clinton told House Democrats a few days before the Jan. 19 Massachusetts special election. In a final-hour campaign speech, Brown denounced ‘those backroom deals for Nebraska and others.’ A post-election poll by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University found that Brown hit a nerve, even though Massachusetts voters had mixed feelings about health care in general. Nearly half said they opposed Obama’s health initiatives.” (Charles Babington, “Backroom Health Care Deals Fuel Voter Anger,” The Associated Press, 1/27/10)

Democrats Failure To Create Jobs And Support For Liberal, Big-Government Agenda Led To Defeat In Massachusetts. “Worse for Democrats, the process of fighting back against those kinds of economic problems has prompted a revving up of the government machinery, which has played into a populist impulse among independent voters, from Massachusetts to California, that the government was simply getting more expensive while its citizens were forced to cut back in their own lives. Moreover, Democrats may have contributed to that sense of overreach by taking on issues that weren’t core to the job and wage concerns of everyday voters … including a cap-and-trade system for holding down greenhouse-gas emissions.” (Gerald F. Seib, “Economy, Health Care, Jobs Fostered Toxic Political Climate,” The Wall Street Journal, 1/20/10)

BECAUSE DEMS’ STIMULUS II WILL DOUBLE DOWN ON STIMULUS I, A LIBERAL GRAB BAG OF PROGRAMS THAT FAILED TO CREATE JOBS

Since Obama’s $826 Billion Stimulus Was Passed, 2.8 Million Jobs Have Been Lost.  (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, Accessed 2/5/10)

But Obama Democrats Pushing Budget With Stimulus II, Which Contains “Familiar Mix” Of Projects From Stimulus I. “Democrats in the House Wednesday muscled through a year-end plan to create jobs, mixing about $50 billion for public works projects with another almost $50 billion for cash-strapped state and local governments. ... But there’s also another $20 billion from the federal treasury to keep the highway trust fund afloat. The measure blends a familiar mix of money for highway, transit and water projects and aid to help communities retain teachers and firefighters. There’s also $41 billion for a six-month extension of more generous unemployment benefits and $ 12 billion to renew health insurance subsidies.” (Andrew Taylor, “House Narrowly Approves Year-End Jobs,” The Associated Press, 12/16/09)

• CNN: “They’re Not Calling It Stimulus 2, But The Obama Administration Wants To Extend The Life Of Several Recovery Act Provisions By Building Them Into The Federal Budget ...” (Tami Luhby, “Stimulus: Secret Sequel In The Budget,” CNNMoney.com, 2/1/10)

Stimulus II To Include More Infrastructure Funds Even Though Similar Funds From First Stimulus “Had No Effect Of Local Unemployment.” “Ten months into President Obama’s first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis has found.  Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn’t matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama’s argument that more road money would address an ‘urgent need to accelerate job growth.’” (“What Stimulus?  Road Projects Aren’t Boosting Jobs Much,” The Associated Press, 1/11/10)

• And Stimulus Money Skipped “Unsafe Or Decaying Bridges” For “Spans That Are Already In Good Shape.” “Tens of thousands of unsafe or decaying bridges carrying 100 million drivers a day must wait for repairs because states are spending stimulus money on spans that are already in good shape or on easier projects like repaving roads ... In all, 1,286 deficient or obsolete bridges are expected to share $2.2 billion in stimulus money for repairs, the AP analysis shows.” (Brett J. Blackledge and Matt Apuzzo, “Stimulus Cash Not Fixing Dangerous Bridges,” The Associated Press, 7/31/09)

Obama’s Also Touting So-Called “Jobs Tax Credit” Straight Out Of “Jimmy Carter’s Economic Playbook.” “As for this new job-focused fiscal plan out of Washington, there’s really nothing quite like using the quick fixes from Jimmy Carter’s economic playbook in the late 1970s -- after all, they worked so well. We have a record of over 6 million Americans who have been unemployed and looking for work without success for at least six months and another 9 million working part-time because they have no choice, and over 6 folks who are jobless competing for every job opening out there and somehow a $33 billion tax credit is the solution to the jobs crisis.” (David Rosenberg, “Breakfast With Dave,” Gluskin Sheff, 2/1/10)

• That Howard Gleckman Of The Urban Institute Says Will “Be An Administrative Nightmare And Won’t Create Many New Jobs.” (Howard Gleckman, “Obama’s $300 Billion Tax Cut: Lots Of Buck, Not Much Bang,” Tax Policy Center, 1/5/09)