The stimulus has passed. In addition to voting against it, Republicans are all over the airwaves trashing it.
The leader of their pack is John Boehner, the man with a tan. According to him, the stimulus will not create jobs. According to Michael Steele, the new RNC Chair, if you work and earn money, you do not necessarily have a job. According to all Republicans who voted no, this bill, with terrible ideas such as helping states pay for Medicare, assisting our elders and our children, is a disaster for our country.
Of course, the Republican Governors who are living this financial meltdown from coast to coast are just fine with the Federal Government coming to at least the partial rescue. As they ask for help, their Republican counterparts in Washington just say no.
Well, as we say on the sandlots, it's time for Boehner to put up or shut up. Or, as Sarah Palin more elegantly put it, "thanks, but no thanks".
Instead of wasting more words on whether the Obama stimulus plan will create jobs, or whether it is "just spending" (which, last time I looked, is what does create jobs), why not call Minority Leader John Boehner's and every no-voting Republican's bluff?
Submit an amendment to the bill stripping all money from the stimulus plan from Boehner's district. It should be the first in a series of "Thanks, But No Thanks" Bills brought to the floor.
Every Democrat would pledge to vote yes or no, exactly as Boehner votes.
That would insure that, if Boehner voted yes (i.e., stripping all the money from his district), the Democrats would give him what he wants. If Boehner votes no (i.e., retaining all the money already appropriated in the stimulus bill for his district), he gets that too. That is, Boehner gets exactly what he wants for his district.
Then, a "Thanks, But No Thanks" bill for Eric Cantor, and another for Mike Pence for good measure.
After that, any Member of Congress who goes on TV, does an interview, is quoted in the press, or stands in the well of Congress blasting the stimulus as not job-creating ought to be greeted the next day in Congress with the same "Thanks, But No Thanks" bill, with only the name and number of the district changed.
If the money is not going to create or save jobs, and is "just spending", as Messrs Boehner, Cantor and Pence have asserted, voting to strip out their district's funding should make no difference and, indeed, ought to be popular with their constituents.
Any money that is not spent in a nay-sayer's district ought to be spent in someone else's district. That way, the size of the stimulus package remains unchanged.
Will Boehner's tan pale as he confronts the implications of his own absurdities? Nothing like sunshine to expose hypocrisy.