A Modest Proposal: States Lose "Main Street Job Creation Act" Funding if Senators Vote Against It
By Mark Karlin
Editor and Publisher, Buzzflash.com
I have a modest proposal: if a U.S. Senator votes against the "Main Street Job Creation Act" (BuzzFlash's name for the "stimulus" bill), their state should lose half the funding from the bill. If both U.S. Senators from one state vote against the bill, the state loses its entire allocation from the legislation.
This may sound Draconian, but it might induce the people out of work and with piles of bills to tar and feather the "economic kamikazee" Republican Senators who got America into this mess -- and to run them out of the country.
After all, most of the GOP Neo-Confederate opposition to the "Main Street Job Creation Act" comes from Senators who represent states that already receive more money from the federal government than they pay into the treasury. With the exception of Florida, most of the Old South is still poorer than most of the rest of the nation, and needs massive federal aid to survive economically.
Stepford Republican Senators who believe that you can stop a house from burning down with a tax cut for the rich -- like Chatty Kathy dolls who just repeat the same line over and over again -- should suffer the political consequences of being so profoundly treacherous to the nation. And nothing would get them off the nearly 30-year-old message point of tax cuts for the rich like a good tar and feathering.
So let Mitch McConnell and John McCain lead the Anti-job, Anti-economic recovery "Stonewall Jackson" brigade of GOP rebels who would do the Union harm. But let their states hold them responsible for not receiving any funds to help improve the employment and economic prospects that comes with the "Main Street Job Creation Act."
It's fair and just, because otherwise the Confederate holdouts and their co-horts in the GOP Senate caucus can claim that they are defending the legacy of Ronald Reagan (a cratered economy, in reality) without consequences.
Let's have some accountablity here.
After Note: As BuzzFlash has noted, we renamed the "stimulus" bill several days ago. We have called it the "Main Street Job Creation Act" on BuzzFlash. One of the reasons polling for the "Main Street Job Creation Act" has gone down is because Americans feel that they were taken for a ride with the Wall Street bailout and stimulus, and so the very word now has a bad connotation.
Besides which, the Obama White House needs to learn from the Republicans that you name bills so that opposing them sounds unpatriotic, Anti-American, or against working Americans. That is why we suggest the White House call the current "stimulus" legislation the "Main Street Job Creation Act." Let the Republicans vote against job creation for Main Street Americans. Once they do, you've already got a good set of campaign commercials for 2010.
Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune -- who is a solid mainstream columnist -- must be reading BuzzFlash, because he picked up on our theme in his Sunday column.
