Lock It Up

Read Frank Rich this morning--the piece seems a little all over the place, which usually I appreciate, but I think it's Rich's attempt at being "fair and balanced."  

That's not to say that he doesn't have legitimate beefs with Geithner, Daschle, and the Bob Rubin contingent (to say nothing of the revolving door culture of politicians and business lobbies).  I could do without the I-bank alumni who are going to have a big say in sculpting the regulation of Wall Street, and it's bizarre that so many of the high profile nominees have tax problems (and if they need some part time help vetting from a law student, they should give me a call).  Obviously, not exactly Team Obama's finest moments from my perspective.

But it's a stretch to say that Slumdog Millionaire, which has grossed an impressive, but not overwhelming, $77M in the US is indicative of a populist streak tearing up the middle of the country.  A populist streak among critics and Oscar voters, maybe, but I'd pick Paul Blart: Mall Cop as an example of populism at the box office ($83M in 3 weeks, as of last week).  

And Daschle's withdrawal was the biggest news of last week until zero Republicans voted for the stimulus package, and until we found out that about 600K Americans lost their jobs in January alone.  Now I don't pretend to be anything but a partisan Democrat, but on some level, isn't it more frightening that, in the midst of losing 1.8 million jobs in the past 3 months, there is not one Republican member of the House who can get behind a package that will put people back to work and stop the bleeding?  I know the Daschle/Cabinet problems/taxes are good copy for newspapers, but I feel like the Washington élite are underestimating just how seriously screwed up our economy is.  That also includes the numerous Democrats in the House and the Senate who are proud of opposing/slashing such "frivolous" ideas like Head Start, public transit, and food stamps.

Here's hoping that Obama cleans house of both the revolving door types and the tax cheats.  Here's also hoping that someone other than the President, of any party and the media, can get it together and realize that if this nonsense keeps up and the federal government doesn't start cutting some checks, we might just find out what breadlines look like in HD.  

Hooveritis hits WMATA

Let us hope that this gets shouted down.  At a time when more people than ever are riding Metro and public transportation, they  want to cut back on the system's service, slashing not only the jobs of the people who work for Metro, but also for people who rely on it to work night shifts, get home afterward, etc.  And what the world needs now is more unemployment... 

 It goes without saying, but stimulus money should be directed toward public transportation systems for exactly this reason.  

Why would we cut these things?

Among the initiatives that could be cut are $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $14 million for cyber security research by the Homeland Security Department, $1 billion for the National Science Foundation, $400 million for research and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, $850 million for Amtrak and $400 million forclimate change research. But so far, none of the suggestions come close to being enough to shrink the package on the scale proposed.

Mind-boggling.   Normally, cutting cyber security measures and not preventing STIs would be a bad thing.   Why is this idea even taken seriously?  I've been trying to give the President the benefit of the doubt on the strategy of getting the stimulus passed; he still gets it, if only because he seems to be the only Democrat working to get this thing passed and to drum up public support.  Congressional Democrats--one of whom, Sen. Nelson, is promoting these cuts--are not getting the benefit of the doubt.  The economy is cratering; people are losing jobs by the hundreds of thousands each month; our infrastructure is crumbling; our climate is spinning out of control.  Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress seem to be up to the same tricks they were used to during the Bush years.