...And They're Off

The Republicans have an amazing ability to oppose anything that is stamped with the new Democratic mandate. Not only did the Democratic party increase their power in the House AND the Senate, they also captured the White House. But the Republicans still believe the American people most want their version of saving the economy; tax cuts. Just one thing to say to those Republicans; President Bush, who was in power for the PAST EIGHT YEARS, passed tax cuts almost at the start of his Presidency and yet by the end of his second term we have arguably the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

As Jamison Foser, Executive Vice President of Media Matters, states in a Media Matters e-mail newsletter today:

From the way the media have covered this week's stimulus package vote, you would think the goal of the legislation was to get Democrats and Republicans to sit together for lunch in the House cafeteria, rather than to turn around an economy in free fall.

After the House passed the stimulus package by a comfortable margin, much of the media reacted not by examining the bill's contents and the likelihood that it would provide a much-needed boost to the economy, but by focusing on the fact that it passed without a single Republican vote.

Why the GOP's unanimity in opposing the stimulus package should be surprising is anybody's guess; the last time we had a newly elected Democratic president, in 1993, congressional Republicans were unanimous in opposing his economic package, too. Then-Rep. John Kasich went so far as to promise that if Bill Clinton's plan worked, Kasich would switch parties. (It did; he didn't.) Point being: Congressional Republicans do not have a strong track record of working with Democratic presidents in recent memory. Perhaps because they were too busy trying to subpoena the White House cat.

Nonetheless, the Democrats' purported failure to get Republican support for the bill was, according to many reporters, the story.

(Full story can be found here and you can sign up for the Media Matters Newsletter here)