Legal Commentary

WSJ's False Reporting On The Stimulus

By Big Tent Democrat

The Wall Street Journal "reports:"

[T]op lawmakers struggl[ed] to bring the price of the two-year package down to $800 billion. That would be well below the $838.2 billion plan approved Tuesday by the Senate on a 61-37 vote, but would reflect pressure from influential moderates in the Senate to hold down costs.

(Emphasis supplied.) This is false reporting by the Wall Street Journal. The "Senate moderates" (read Nelson, Collins, Specter and Snowe) were perfectly willing not to cut the costs of the biggest pieces of pork proposed in the Senate bill. These came from Republican Senators Charles Grassley of Iowa (with his insistence on the inclusion of the Alternative Minimum Tax fix at a cost of $70 billion) and Johnny Issakson of Georgia (with his insistence at the inclusion of a home buying tax credit of $15,000 at a cost of $35 billion). Ironically, neither Senator actually voted for the stimulus package.

More . . .

The "Senate moderates" do not oppose the high cost of the bill, they oppose effective stimulus spending, such as aid to states. If they truly were focused on the "cost" of the bill, they would not object to stripping the Grassley and Isaakson provisions, which would save $105 billion. Such savings would allow for the inclusion of truly effective stimulus spending such as aid to states.

The Wall Street Journal is not telling the truth in its reporting. The "Senate moderates" are not concerned with the cost of the bill (or the efficacy of the bill for that matter, the Senate bill creates 625,00 fewer jobs than the House bill at a cost $20B higher). It is in fact hard to figure out what exactly they are concerned about, unless it is sabotaging the effectiveness of the stimulus bill.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 11, 2009 (boomark / email).