Final passage of the nearly $820 billion package came on a 244-188 vote with no Republicans supporting the bill. This was a far cry from the bipartisan showing Obama had hoped for, but he remains in command and Senate Republicans now concede that the president is likely to prevail there as well, with no reason to fear a protracted filibuster fight.
The reason Obama wants Republican support for his gigantic pork bill is that he has his doubts that it will do anything other than plunge the country deeper into debt, not to show bi-partisan unity. True bi-partisan unity would be giving the Republicans their tax cuts in the bill.
Tangent: Where are all of these people who relentlessly criticized Sarah Palin for taking federal money to improve Alaska’s highways? Remember the whole “pork barrel spending” argument against her ? Why are they not outraged by this bill, the mother of all pork bills ?
If the plan fails, which it will most likely do, Obama would be able to at least split the blame. If he truly knows and believes the plan will work, then he does not have to give the evil Republicans any credit for anything, which has been democrat SOP (standard operating procedure). He never needed their support for any of this garbage. As it is now, this is Obama’s and the Democrats’ baby. Hopefully Senate Republicans will show party unity and put this whole damn thing on the Democrat’s shoulders.
Maybe in a few years, when people are still unemployed and have more debt, when tax rates are higher, when the economy is even worse, when someone figures out that printing all of this money didn’t actually work, just maybe we can get rid of these hypocrites.
