Posted on 02/06/2009 10:23:52 AM PST by Blue Turtle
Just got off the phone with an influential Republican senator. I asked how things stood with the stimulus, and he answered instantly, "They've cut a deal with three of our guys. They're delaying us from offering amendments. I suspect that as soon as they've got it written, they will offer it as an amendment, vote on it, and that will be it." He didn't have details on what the deal might be, but most Republicans seem to suspect it will involve relatively small cuts — and very little change in the price tag of the bill from the House version — that will be touted as a major bipartisan compromise. My senator suspects — hopes? — that no more than four Republicans will vote for the bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at corner.nationalreview.com ...
It’s nothing to even negotiate, no.
Where’s the first money? Did they fix Fannie/Freddie/NINJA loans that kicked this off (along with the runs via Schumer/Banks, Reid/Insurance)? Exactly.
I’m surprised the ICC hasn’t put us up on charges for wrecking the world’s economy.
They think this is a *ing game.
You're kidding, right?
CYA. When it fails, and it will, they will call the whole thing ‘bipartisan’.
Graham hitting about spending 400 million on STDs versus spending money on mortgage crisis and tells them if they think STDs are better use of the money then vote against his amendment.
Thankfully Vitter has proposed getting rid of the Acorn part of the bill.
Nope.
Michael Steele, congratulations on winning the RNC chair for Republicans. The firmly entrenched Saul Alinsky’s get-in-your-face Obama marxist tactics should be picked up by Republicans through the RNC. We can put this movement out of existence. Start by taking on the RINO’s in general but let’s declare war on the handful of Senators who are signing on to obama’s socialist spending bill(s). The harm perpetrated on our children and grandchildren must be stopped.
Apparently, Arlen Specter (according to RedState’s sources) is leading the charge to secure Republican moderates.
Everyone call his office please:
202-224-4254
Just got through to one of his district offices. It was all I could do to talk calmly and politely....Arggg...
He has been bought off is my guess!
busy
1. Byron - they aren’t ‘our guys’.
2. Voinovich, Snow, Collins, and Spector.
Mark it down, these are the four.
I have inside info on why Spector is going along with this. He's cut a deal with Obama. Since it appears that he will have a very hard time winning reelection in 2010, Obama has promised Arlen that in return for his vote, he will be named Ambassador to Scotland.
Poor Scotland.
Try FAXING both DC and local offices, NOW!
Voinovich pulls out of negotiations. Its only the Maine twits & Specter now.
For once I don't think so, I spoke with an aid in his office this morning, who told me he is against the current stimulus bill.
Spector Regional fax: 610-434-1844
I was talking with a sane liberal last night. There are a few of them, very rare individuals. He told me, “We usually win whether we are in power or not, just some of the time we get to blame you guys and run against our own malfeasance in office. Next time we can't. The media will help us avoid a bloodbath, but you Republicans are already on the march.”
That was working assumption during the Gingrich shut down as well - polling showed that Americans were disgusted with the current levels of government spending and the presumed waste, experiment demonstrated that Americans were even more disgusted with its absence.
It appears to me that Republicans are likely in a similar situation today: everyone is unhappy with some provision of this bill, but on the average Americans are going to be even more unhappy if nothing is passed at all.
IMO from the Republican standpoint this hand is just about played out - some substantial tax concessions were achieved in the House, probably $50 billion in spending cuts to programs unpopular with most Republicans will take place in the Senate.
But Obama is correct about this much: Republicans lost the last two elections, and to believe that you are going to get the same stimulus bill that you would have from the previous administration, or likely even from a McCain administration, and holding out for anything like it at this time is likely going to extract a political cost far in excess of any likely gain.
It's on to the next deal, folks.
I'm still trying to get my arms around the idea that conservatives are somehow responsible for helping Obama win because they didn't support the Rinos that are currently helping Obama win.
I’d like to think so, that we’re on the march, but I have lost faith in so many Republican congressmen, and this vote in the Senate will show why, when some of “ours” give them cover. I agree with the previous poster who said, even if it’s only three of them, the media will spin it as “bipartisan”, and the left has the media for its very own megaphone. They will use three measly votes to share the blame when this thing takes the economy down further, and takes us further down the road to socialism.
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