Biden: White House Wanted Bigger Stimulus; Republicans Howl Immediately

From the Huffington Post news wire:

Appearing on ABC's "This Week," Biden endorsed the viewpoint held by Keynesian economists like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (who he referenced by name), acknowledging that the stimulus passed was likely too small. But, he added, there would have been no package at all had it not been made smaller and, subsequently, more palatable to moderate Republicans.

"There was a reality," Biden told host Jake Tapper. "In order to get what we got passed, we had to find Republican votes. And we found three. And we finally got it passed."

And

But Biden's comments are already being jumped on by Republican strategists, who have spent the past year ridiculing the stimulus as a massive, wasted, $800 billion check. Kevin Madden, a longtime consultant and confidant of Mitt Romney, predicted television ads attacking the White House for Biden's remark.

More here.

"And we found three."

Seriously? The White House's famed efforts at bipartisanship netted three, three, lousy GOP votes for a shitty stimulus package so small that it couldn't possibly do what they were claiming it would do. This is disturbing. If I'm to understand this correctly, the Obama administration was fully aware that the bill they settled on would be ineffective, but went for it anyway in order to foster this come together unity shit that the Republicans had pronounced dead on the day the President took office. What were they thinking? How could they possibly believe that the right-wing psychopaths of the Republican Party would play ball?

They would have been much better off - indeed, the country would have been much better off - if they had gone the true Keynesian route, pumping WWII amounts of spending into the economy, and telling the GOP to fuck off. Sure, it would have been difficult to go it alone, as the health care legislative battle ultimately revealed, but we would have gotten a bill that would have actually jump started the economy, rather than simply making up for state spending cuts.

I truly hope the Obama administration has learned, or is learning, that there is no bipartisanship. The Republicans want to dominate totally; it's their way and no other way at all. Given such an obstacle to governance, the only sensible course of action is to destroy them. Totally.

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