Harry Reid, You are an Embarrassment to the Democratic Party

Alternet is reporting that the Senate Democratic leadership has given away the best and most productive parts of the stimulus package in the name of "bipartisanship.

You Democrats in Congress seem to have a wimp factor braided into your DNA. Here's part of what AlterNet says:
Reid surrendered $86 billion in proposed stimulus spending.

In doing so, the Democrats agreed to cut not just fat but bone, and to warp the focus and intent of the legislation.

The Senate plan is dramatically more weighted than the House bill toward tax cuts (which account for more than 40 percent of the overall cost of the package). This is despite the fact that there is a growing consensus -- among even conservative economists and policy makers -- that tax cuts will do little or nothing to stimulate job creation in a country that lost almost 600,000 positions in January alone. As French President Nicolas Sarkozy, no liberal, said Friday of countries that opt for tax cuts rather than stimulus: The approach "will bring them nothing" in the way of economic regeneration.

The Senate's increased emphasis on tax cuts comes at the expense of the aggressive spending in key areas that might actually get a stalled economy moving.

Spending for school construction that would actually have put people to work -- while at the same time investing in the future -- has been slashed. (Almost $20 billion slated for school construction is gone.)

Money for Superfund cleanup, Head Start and Early Start child care, energy efficiency initiatives and historic preservation projects -- all of which create or maintain existing jobs -- has been cut.

Supplemental transportation funding has been hacked.

The House's proposal to help unemployed Americans maintain their health benefits has been chopped down.

Axed, as well, has been $90 million that was to have been allocated to plan for and manage a potential flu pandemic that economists and public health experts worry could shutter remaining businesses, bring the economy to a complete standstill and throw the country into a deep depression.

The bottom line is that, under the Senate plan:

* States will get less aid.

* Schools will get less help.

* Job creation programs will be less well funded.

* Preparations to combat potential public health disasters -- which could put the final nail in the economy's coffin -- will not be made.

In every sense, the Senate plan moves in the wrong direction.

Great job, Ried. Now Obama will get a plan that is likely to fail. Did it ever occur to you that this is what the Republicans are aiming for? They want Obama to fail. Their fearless leader Limbaugh has said as much publicly.

Harry Reid, you and your fellow Democratic leaders are like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. If you only had a brain.

With Love,

NEWSGUY