You think you have the votes, Reid? Fine.

Then just go ahead and pass that debt bill of yours, over our objection.

RIGHT NOW.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Thursday that he has enough votes to pass a more than $900 billion stimulus bill out of the Senate.

Reid said he believes at least two Republicans of “good will” would support the Democratic-crafted package.

Note, by the way, that this is as-is: the Democrats aren’t inclined to give the moderates even the 200 billion that they’re trying to cut. But no matter: if Reid has the support to pass his party’s debt bill, then he does, and it’s long past time for the Democrats to take ownership of this.

So go ahead, already. Pass your bill.

Note: “your.”

Crossposted at RedState.

5 thoughts on “You think you have the votes, Reid? Fine.”

  1. The problem is that Obama started out by negotiating with himself. He should have held back the $300 billion in tax cuts, and kept in the full rail and transit funding, and then “conceded” to the Republicans. It looks like he set out with what he thought he could get people to sign up to, instead of a maximalist position from which he could make easy concessions. It’s unfortunate that such kabuki is needed.

    1. Personally, I think that his major mistake here was letting Congressional Democrats define the parameters of the debt bill, to the point where evil Republicans like myself can successfully define it as a debt bill. The sooner he realizes that the legislative and the executive branches of government are always going to be at cross-purposes, the easier a term he’s going to have.

  2. I’m not sure there was any way to structure this so that it wouldn’t be portrayed as a debt bill. Macroeconomics says we need spending to boost demand in the short term; that’s basically throwing money at problems so as to keep money circulating through the economy and makeup for a shortfall in private sector demand; what we get for it is less important than actually getting money moving.

    The standard conservative line on liberals is that we “like throwing money at the problem”. If you can’t sell that on a package like this, where it’s actually (and legitimately) one of the ends (rather than simply a means), you’re not really trying.

  3. Off of the top of my head; a giant, temporary hack of income and payroll taxes for six months, plus a collection of projects that could be legitimately started in six months to two years, plus a moderate amount of longer term spending, would have been something that the Democrats would have gotten that through the House with enough GOP support for cover – if it was about 400 billion or so.

    Well, maybe next iteration.

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