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Progressives: Stop Whining About The Recovery Plan and Actually Fight |
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Progressive bloggers need to stop complaining about the economic recovery package and start prodding their readers to make phone calls. And you, dear reader, should join me in calling our senators.
There are two reasons why Obama’s economic recovery package needs to pass and why we, progressive bloggers and blog readers, should support it and call for action.
First, Obama must win this fight. I’m with Krugman, Stirling Newberry, and others - I’m not sure this package is going to be big enough or bold enough to solve our economic problems. But I can tell you one thing for certain: If this bill gets defeated, there will be absolutely no chance for recovery, let alone anything else like health care, energy, education, and the like. If Obama loses the first big fight he picks, he gets cautious really quickly, just like Bill Clinton.
Second, if netroots activists don’t go all in on this fight, we lose relevance. We criticize Democratic politicians for treating us like a cash machine to tap every time they need re-election funds. Once they’re in Congress they promptly forget about us and our needs. Well, if the only time we’re going to put our power and credibility on the line is when these people need to get elected, they’ll only turn to us during elections.
If we refuse to take a risk and get involved in legislative battles between elections, we shouldn’t be surprised when our wishes are ignored. Back before the election, we had no trouble asking our readers to get to the phones. I participated in an effort that generated hundreds of thousands of calls about FISA. There were numerous pleas for calls during the last SCHIP fight under Bush. But since the election I’ve seen none of this. If politicians know we won’t get their back during legislative fights, why should they stick their necks out for us?
There’s a lot of writing about the economic recovery plan on blogs like Daily Kos, Open Left, Americablog, Crooks and Liars, and Talking Points Memo, but something is absent. Not one post is asking readers to pick up the phone. Or write a letter. Or visit their Member of Congress. People definitely have something to complain about. But now that the Senate is debating, the time for complaining is over. It’s time for action.
To be sure, there are exceptions. MyDD has a post up. So does Seeing the Forest. So does Firedoglake. Bleeding Heartland too. ACORN is in on it. And Campaign for America’s Future has been doing a ton. But it’s hardly the swarm of blog posts we’ve had in the past.
Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh supporters outnumber progressive calls 100 to 1. As Bill Scher says:
Are we flooding Congress with phone calls (Call 1-866-544-7573 NOW!) to keep President Obama’s economic recovery bill big and bold? Or are we overly focused with perfection, letting conservatives, despite their diminishing numbers, dominate the phone lines?
I’m not saying bloggers need to support this package blindly. Our message should push from the left even as it supports. Asking people to call with the message, “Less tax cuts, more investment in jobs,” if communicated loudly enough, would allow politicians room to move left in their policy. But there’s simply no excuse for sitting back, criticizing, and not calling for action.
So, for the country’s sake, stop complaining and start acting. I don’t care how you do it. Call the Senate switchboard (202.224.3121). Call your Senators in their home offices (look up their websites here). Go visit your Members of Congress, either in DC or at home. Sit at your computer and click a button to call your Senators. Health Care for America Now will even hand-deliver your letter to Congress if you just take a moment to write one.
We can be blind followers (like the Right), we can be supporters from the left, or we can be silent and irrelevant. I hope you choose to make your voice heard. And for those of you out there who blog yourselves, write a post asking others to do the same.
“If this bill gets defeated, there will be absolutely no chance for recovery”
Oh for the love of god. This is the same nonsense the right perpetrated with war and civil liberties violations - fear of an apocalyptic end motivating people to do something that we should probably all take a step back on and think twice about.
You can’t ACTUALLY believe that if this repugnant bill doesn’t pass, somehow the economy and this country will spiral out of control economically. I think we need to spend big on infrastructure development, green jobs, and all the like as well, but mostly to jump start us getting moving again. I have no allusions to the fact that if we did nothing, the American people would end up turning this economy around on their own.
The progressive agenda and talking points should be behind a stimulus - hard core. But this bill is garbage, and idiots like Pelosi have torpedoed a real opportunity here to get some things done by putting in all these easily assailable spending line items that make it so easy to attack that even the GOP can do it.
Obama promised roads, bridges, broadband, school infrastructure, etc. If it were 900 billion dollars of that, I’d be on board. I think progressives aren’t energized on this bill like you want because they recognize that its just a political stunt too - and its hard to get excited about a political stunt.
So, if we want to be taken seriously - lets be serious, shall we? If we did nothing, Americans would end up just fine, thank you very much - the sky is not falling, the world is not ending, and we’re a hell of a lot more resilient than to be so weak as a people that the government not going a trillion more dollars into debt would destroy us.
But, we SHOULD invest hundreds of billions into our economy none the less, simply because it is good policy to provide a B12 shot to the arm of the economy. But that stimulus should be what we were promised - things that actually get jobs created.
So, you’ll forgive me, but over the last 8 years, I’ve learned not to be motivated by fear when a politician or an activist tells me “if we don’t do something, CALLAMITY will result!!!” - I didn’t believe it with Bush, and I’m not going to believe it with Obama.
He, and the congressional dems come out with a REAL package that is a SERIOUS attempt to stimulate the economy, and I’ll support it. Until then, I’m not calling anyone, and I hope it dies.
I don’t think you read the article carefully. The point was not that the country will collapse if the bill doesn’t pass, but rather that Obama has the chance to gain a lot of leverage for passing other important bills on healthcare, energy, etc. if he can win this first battle. Not calamity, but lost opportunity is what’s at stake.
That being said, I do agree that all is not lost for Obama if he loses. It will just be a tougher road to hoe.
“I don%u2019t think you read the article carefully. The point was not that the country will collapse if the bill doesn%u2019t pass”
*ahem*
“But I can tell you one thing for certain: If this bill gets defeated, there will be absolutely no chance for recovery”
I think by “winning” this battle, it actually makes it FAR less likely he rams through anything on healthcare or energy. By saddling us with so much wasteful crap that has nothing to do with infrastructure, he’s ALREADY going to be tagged as a “wasteful spending liberal” who racks up debt on pet spending projects centralized in the government, etc etc etc. In other words, he’s sinking his “go big or go home” strategy on this, and I can’t imagine a scenario where Americans will be comfortable with MORE large scale spending projects AFTER it passes, ESPECIALLY if it contains so much extraneous waste.
I’m picturing how much ammo we’re giving Republicans here. Pass this “stimulus” bill, which does such a poor job of actually investing anything, then demand he spend more on healthcare (which will be a several hundred billion dollar project), then deman more for clean energy (hundres of billions more), and so on and so forth.
If there is ONE thing that can galvanize the Republicans, its that. So we’re handing them a gift.
The only solution we can offer that would actually cut their knees out from under them is to pass an efficient bill. 100% of the bill should be for infrastructure - roads, bridges, schools, broadband. THATS IT - end it there. You want to spend 800 billion on that, go for it… but not this special interest crap that often times is actually needed expenditures (the ice breaker, for example), but just opens us up to the perception that we’re wasteful big spending liberals.
Then, not only would we get credit for not bowing to special interest, and spending money on what the country NEEDS - it would give us leverage and credibility to act in other sectors later. Right now, Pelosi is killing our credibility, and the American people ALREADY aren’t buying the Democratic party as the careful stewards of our tax money. That reputation is QUICKLY being formed, and once formed it will be EXTREMELY difficult to fix.
So, IMHO, we can NOT pass this as is right now, so I will not call a single person to support it. Supporting it blindly even though it contains such titanic flaws will only label us with those flaws, and it also won’t help get much of the economy geared up again - running the risk of completely destroying our base of support.
See, Progressives need to have learned the lessons of the Bush years. What destroyed the Republicans was that they became cheerleaders for crap they never wanted in the first place, pissed off their base and the independent voters in the process, and then were left with failed policies that NOBODY wanted.
We can NOT repeat that mistake.
We need to learn from their mistake, and learn from it. We can not just give a blank check to those we supported simply because they are on our side. That’s exactly what the Republicans did, and that’s exactly why Bush was never held accountable and wrecked the country and his party in the process. They should have stood up to him from the get go and said, “you know what Mr. President - NO - this is a stupid idea…” - but much like Andrew Sullivan just said, they “rolled over” and took it, signed on, and became cheerleaders because they were intoxicated by being on the “winning side” after 8 years of Clinton.
We can’t do that. We must oppose this bill as it currently stands.
If nothing is done, we’ll be just fine. There is no pressing urgency here - NOTHING the government can do will save jobs tomorrow, or next week, or next month - NOTHING. We can take proactive steps to stop the downward slide in the economy and begin to reverse it - but lets be honest here… if we do nothing, or wait just a little longer to get it right, this country will not implode.
So lets stop with the grandstanding doomsday talk - that sounds very much like the crap sandwich we have been fed by Republicans for the last decade. Lets pause, take a second, and stand up to the leaders screwing up our agenda, and say “no” - this is a bad idea. If we are to use the government as a tool to get the economy moving again, then we have to do it right, and doing it right is not giving political ammunition to our opponents by inserting special interest issues and money that is easily attacked and has little to do with stimulating the economy into this bill.
If we’re going to call people on the Hill, it should be to plead with them not to screw up our agenda by doing what they are doing. We should ask them to scrap the bill and write a new one which pumps 100% infrastructure development money (or at the very least 100% money meant to actually stimulate the economy and create jobs) into the economy, and stop giving the GOP the gift that keeps on giving.
Unless they do that, they’ll pass a boondoggle and screw any PR chance at convincing the American people that we need to pass more spending later, and not only that, it means we’ll lose significant house seats in 2010, which will make that agenda even harder.
My argument is mostly a political argument, not an economic argument, but all the economists I read that I respect say yeah, this is actually a crisis, and yeah, things will spiral out of control.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good here. This bill is not perfect. It’s not even close. But it does spend a lot of money on a lot of things that actually create jobs. Just because it isn’t “100% infrastructure” doesn’t mean we should support it while pushing for more.
Just a very small comment so as to relieve the tension to agree with this love of god retort. I truly believe that the more we mess with it throw money in it all at once it will eventually become this big stinky soup that is generally very unappealing.
Those with the biggest voice arguing for this “stimulus” package probably are in some panic because they have realized the general apparition of ‘control’ and they really are just feeling helpless. thats OK. We all with the very selective and deliberate help from OUR federal “us” government will be able to slowly and securely pick those people up and help. It will all come to light if we DO NOT PANIC. As far as what President Obama is doing,, three cheers. I truly admire him and I think he likes that. I KNOW he wants what is best. Thats why he IS listening to other people even those nasty ‘ole’ Reps.
Personally I think we should be able to individually appeal for aid from the government for our own small businesses and if we require help with an expiring health insurance or maybe a little varience in a mortgage thats going bad in a hurry..
If we have an Idea for a small business apply for a grant. And get it. I think the people need a little more accountability for what condition this country is in and I know we want to be able to point to where the hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars went and for what when Wall Street came crying they, no doubt, have a far more important agenda it seems. ?? I am overly curios though, to really know what happened to all that money. Wow.
I do know that even the big super users of money are somehow still beholden to the people. So lets all be really smart and deliberate. If you need help don’t be too proud to ask for help, there are smarter people than you in the same kind of panic. That is without question but they already got there money and are gone. So lets be overly questioning and slow to React. The Response that capital hill will receive will be one of support to do what is Absolutely necessary and nothing that is not.
A reaction soon leads to Overreaction and that is never good.
So Cudoes to those that are keeping their Cool about themselves, and three cheers for the Tall man in the White House, And do really call your representative or write a nice letter expressing your concern and let him or her know that your counting on them. And if your school, or business, or you could use a little confidence booster please let him know maybe he should be able to petition for a little something for you and your community. through a system of delegating the money through numerous channels and accountabilities there would have to be a certain way to see exactly who ends up with all that stimulus. might be a little slower but it might serve to the advantage. Do you remember when we used to get a check from tax returns? Nobody but the person who’s name was in the check could use it and there was no question where it ended up.
Tell those guys who work and get paid for you what YOU want done with the money. There is sure to be some kind of consensus in your state or neighborhood. Get out start asking questions and see what you can do.