Dems Want to Party Like It’s 2009

Despite Failure of the First Stimulus, Democrats Laud Obama for Offering More of the Same Spending

• After weeks of clamoring for a new stimulus, House Democrats got their wish last Thursday when President Obama announced his plan for a new $447 billion spending spree that media observers dubbed “stimulus lite.”
• House Democrats are now demanding a full vote on the proposal, asking Republicans to embrace a new spending spree that could be funded either with money borrowed from countries like China or new job-destroying tax increases.
• Democrats are trying to get Americans to forget the colossal failure of their previous stimulus package, which fell embarrassingly short of White House promises, by not labeling their latest plan with the word “stimulus.” If Democrats think that by renaming the stimulus they can trick voters that it’s anything other than more of the same, they are sadly mistaken.

BACKGROUND

After weeks of clamoring for a new stimulus, House Democrats got their wish last Thursday when President Obama announced his plan for a $447 billion new spending spree that media observers dubbed “stimulus lite”:

PELOSI “STILL PUSHING AN ECONOMIC STIMULUS AGENDA”: “Though the House minority leader and her caucus are still pushing an economic stimulus agenda to save the economy, they’ve radically changed their rhetoric with the hope of winning over voters who saw ‘stimulus’ as close to a dirty word. Democrats are now being careful to frame their job-creation agenda in language excluding references to any stimulus, even though their favored policies for ending the deepest recession since the Great Depression are largely the same. … That’s a sharp shift from last year’s messaging strategy, when Pelosi issued hundreds of press releases touting the benefits of the 2009 stimulus bill in hopes of making believers of skeptical voters.” (Mike Lillis, “Pelosi Drops the Word ‘Stimulus’,” The Hill, 9/6/2011)

USA TODAY: IS THIS “JOBS PLAN DÉJÀ VU”? “SADLY YES”: “Americans who watched President Obama’s call for a new jobs bill Thursday night might have wondered whether they were stuck in a time warp. A proposal to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to put people to work: Is this 2009 all over again? In some ways, sadly, yes.” (Editorial, “Jobs Plan Déjà Vu,” USA Today, 9/9/2011)

“OBAMA’S JOBS SPEECH: DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN?”: “The speech mostly gave us a sense of déjà vu. From the president’s language, you would never know that Congress already has acted under his watch to save jobs — the $800 billion stimulus plan passed shortly after he took office.” (Glenn Kessler, “Obama’s jobs speech: deja vu all over again?” The Washington Post’s The Fact Checker Blog, 9/9/2011)

ABC NEWS’ JAKE TAPPER: “NEW, SECOND STIMULUS” BASICALLY “FOLLOWS THE SAME CONTOURS” OF THE FIRST ONE: “The president’s plan, aimed at answering his critics’ recent calls for boldness, follows the same contours of the $825 billion economic stimulus package he signed into law three years ago.

“This new, second stimulus of sorts features a mix of tax cuts for businesses and workers, billions in new infrastructure spending and aid to states, and an infusion of aid for the long-term unemployed.”(Jake Tapper, “President Obama Pushes $447 Billion Jobs Plan in Address to Congress,” ABC News, 9/8/2011)

DETROIT NEWS: “OBAMA OFFERS STIMULUS LITE.” (Editorial, “Obama Offers Stimulus Lite,” The Detroit News, 9/9/2011)

House Democrats are now demanding a full vote on the proposal, asking Republicans to embrace a new spending spree that could be funded either with money borrowed from countries like China or new job-destroying tax increases:

LATEST OBAMA STIMULUS SPENDING SPREE TO BE PAID FOR WITH NEW JOB-DESTROYING TAX INCREASES. SHOULD WE ACT SURPRISED?: “President Barack Obama wants to pay for his new $450 billion jobs plan with a mixture of tax increases, spending cuts and trims to Medicare and Medicaid.”(“Obama Would Pay for Jobs Plan With Spending Cuts, Tax Hikes and Trimming Medicare and Medicaid,” Associated Press, 9/8/2011)

ASSOCIATED PRESS: “FACT CHECK: OBAMA’S JOBS PLAN PAID FOR? SEEMS NOT”: “President Barack Obama’s promise Thursday that everything in his jobs plan will be paid for rests on highly iffy propositions.” (Calvin Woodward and Tom Raum, “FACT CHECK: OBAMA’S JOBS PLAN PAID FOR? SEEMS NOT,” Associated Press, 9/8/2011)

AND HOUSE DEMS WANT SINGLE VOTE ON PLAN—A PROPOSAL EVEN SOME SENATE DEMOCRATS REJECT: “House Democratic leaders on Friday said they’ll push for Congress to take up President Obama’s jobs plan in one, huge package.

“House Republicans — and even some Senate Democrats — have warned that there’s not enough time left in the year to consider such a comprehensive and controversial package. They’re suggesting congressional leaders isolate the less-contentious parts of the plan — the low-hanging fruit that lawmakers could pass quickly for the sake of creating jobs and bolstering the public’s confidence in Congress.” (Mike Lillis, “House Dems Want Full Jobs Package,” The Hill, 9/9/2011)

Democrats are trying to get Americans to forget the colossal failure of their previous stimulus package, which fell embarrassingly short of White House promises, by not labeling their latest plan with the word “stimulus.” If Democrats think that by renaming the stimulus they can trick voters that it’s anything other than more of the same, they are sadly mistaken:

THEY’VE JUST DROPPED THE WORD “STIMULUS”: “Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Democrats have dropped the word ‘stimulus’ from their vocabulary.” (Mike Lillis, “Pelosi Drops the Word ‘Stimulus’,” The Hill, 9/6/2011)

MORE THAN 2 MILLION JOBS LOST UNDER OBAMA: “The RNC figure—2 million jobs gone—actually underplays the number of jobs lost since Obama took office.” (Mark Naymik, “Republican National Committee’s Ad Says There Are 2 Million Fewer Jobs Since Obama Took Office,” Politifact, 7/7/2011)

AUGUST JOBS REPORT: ZERO NEW JOBS, UNEMPLOYMENT STUCK AT 9.1%, FIRST TIME SINCE FEB. 1945 THAT ECONOMY HAS HAD “MONTHLY NET JOB CHANGE OF ZERO.” (Lyneka Little and Bill McGuire, “U.S. Employers Added No New Jobs in August,” ABC News, 9/2/2011)

WHITE HOUSE FORECAST HAS UNEMPLOYMENT ABOVE 9% THROUGH 2012. (Erik Wasson, “White House Downgrades Job Growth Forecast for 2012,” The Hill, 9/1/2011)

ODDS OF A RECESSION AT 50 PERCENT? “If history is a guide, the odds that the American economy is falling into a double-dip recession have risen sharply in recent weeks and may even have reached 50 percent.” (David Leonhardt, “Rising Fears of Recession,” The New York Times, 9/7/2011)

POLITICO/BATTLEGROUND: “IT’S A ROUGH DAY WHEN THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT A NEW… POLL HAS YOUR APPROVAL RATING AT 45 PERCENT,” DISAPPROVAL AT 50%. (Jonathan Allen, Politico’s “The Huddle”, 9/6/2011)

59% DISAPPROVE OF OBAMA ON ECONOMY, JUST 39% APPROVE. (Carrie Budoff Brown, “Battleground Poll: Obama Approval Rating Down Amid Deep Economic Fears,” Politico, 9/5/2011)

THE WASHINGTON POST POLL: MORE THAN 60% DISAPPROVE OF OBAMA ON THE ECONOMY AND JOBS. (Jon Cohen and Dan Balz, “Obama Ratings Sink to New Lows as Hope Fades,” The Washington Post, 9/6/2011)

47% IN POLL “STRONGLY” DISAPPROVE OF OBAMA ON ECONOMY: “Meanwhile, 62 percent of Americans say they disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy, including 47 percent who do so ‘strongly.’” (Jake Tapper, “President Obama Pushes $447 Billion Jobs Plan in Address to Congress,” ABC News, 9/8/2011)

OBAMA HITS “NEW CAREER LOW,” 43% APPROVAL, AND 53% DISAPPROVAL, “A NEW HIGH.” (Jon Cohen and Dan Balz, “Obama Ratings Sink to New Lows as Hope Fades,” The Washington Post, 9/6/2011)

NBC/WSJ: OBAMA DISAPPROVAL AT 51%, HIGHEST SINCE INAUGURATION: “A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of 1,000 adults, taken Aug. 27-31, found that 44% of Americans approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, with more than half, or 51%, disapproving for the first time since his inauguration.” (Jonathan Weisman, “Voter Discontent Deepens Ahead of Obama Jobs Plan,” The Wall Street Journal, 9/6/2011)

HOWEVER, SUPPORT FOR GOP-CONTROLLED CONGRESS “AT HIGHEST LEVEL” SINCE 1996: “But,voter preference for a Republican-controlled Congress is at its highest level in recent memory, according to the WSJ/NBC poll. Forty-seven percent of registered voters polled say they prefer a GOP Congress and 41 percent say they want Democrats in charge. In October 2010, Democrats were preferred 46-44. It’s the first time Republicans have been riding so high on that question dating back to 1996, the first year in which numbers were made available by the WSJ and NBC.” (Jonathan Allen,Politico’s “The Huddle”, 9/6/2011)