Thursday, January 29, 2009

Thursday evening "Stimulus Package" roundup (excerpts-with video)

Gibbs: "Obama Wouldn't Do Anything Different On Stimulus":
The House of Representatives successfully passed a stimulus package last night, but it was viewed as a rebuke to the president that not a single Republican crossed the aisle to support it.

Asked, the next day whether the Obama administration, if it could go back in time, would change the way the stimulus was put together -- perhaps including less accomodations to GOP demands -- spokesman Robert Gibbs offered an emphatic no.

"If he had to do it all over again ... the president wouldn't do anything differently," he said. "The fact is the president didn't do anything differently last night after the vote..." when a group of Republican congressman came to the White House to meet with Obama. The vote did, however, come up in the largely social gathering held at 1600 Pennsylvania, Gibbs said.
Russ Feingold:"Preventing the pork in the stimulus"--MSNBC, video (07:50).

"Dems To Leadership: Cut GOP Loose" (Ryan Grim):
Rank-and-file Congressional Democrats had been willing to give Republicans the business tax cuts and other provisions they wanted in the stimulus. That is, up until every single one voted against the bill on the House floor Wednesday.

Now, in both the House and the Senate, angry members are lobbying Democratic leaders to yank those tax breaks back.
"Mark Halperin blames President Obama for being too partisan..." (John Amato, with video):
Mark "Matt Drudge Rules the World" Halperin was on Morning Joe earlier today and blamed President Obama for the fact that no House Republicans voted for the stimulus bill. One of the Village elders has spoken. I've heard him say foolish things before, but is he using Limbaugh's maid? What was Obama supposed to do, win the election, the House and the Senate and turn the stimulus package over to John Boehner and Rush Limbaugh? Is this man insane? I've written many times that I thought President Obama went too far in trying to wooooo Republicans for bipartisanship. They were never going to sign up.

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