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Just a little over an hour ago, I wrote that the likely scenario for the war supplemental is that it will be stripped of any social spending and passed, ostensibly with Republican support if they can make it as clean as possible. Progressives didn’t really have a choke point with this bill. If it couldn’t pass with, for example, the education jobs fund that the House put in, they could always just strip that and use Republican votes. Sure enough…
House Democratic leaders will accept the Senate’s plan to pass a stripped-down supplemental spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while seeking another vehicle for money to prevent the layoffs of some 140,000 teachers, a well-informed House aide said Monday.
The decision reflects the reality that Democrats lack the votes in the Senate to attach billions of dollars in help for states to keep teachers on the payroll this fall.
The teacher money is a top priority for Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey , D-Wis.
But not as big a priority as funding the wars, I guess.
Pelosi and Obey make some nods to inserting the teacher funding into a separate bill, like a revived tax extenders package, but I would say the chances of that happening are between slim and none. And so literally hundreds of thousands of teachers will pay the price of additional job cuts, because we had to fight 100 or so Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. That’s the functional trade-off here.
While the Presidential veto threat because of how the education jobs were paid for didn’t exactly help matters, it seems that this was purely an ideological play. Like the previous sentence says, the education jobs fund was offset. That didn’t matter. Republican obstructionists and some Democrats were just ideologically opposed to helping state budgets and preventing teacher layoffs. I don’t know another way to read it.
The stimulus from helping the jobless with unemployment benefits, to the tune of about $33 billion dollars (covering close to a trillion dollar annual shortfall), will be all the stimulus coming from this Congress for the rest of the year.
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Doncha hate it when you’re correct on these?
Apparently there’s always money for war and killing and never enough to actually do some good for the future.
Same as it’s ever been
I’m sure there is some way to blame this on Sharon Angle, Teabaggers, Michele Bachman, that nutty governor in Arizona, the real tan dude in Congress, Glenn Beck or Palin.
It’s their fault, right?
Well, have they shown any support for any of the bills extending UI benefits or that will keep teachers employed and keep classrooms a skosh smaller? Or have they been against any of these bills from the very beginning but have been willing to pay for perpetual war?
Since I’m fairly certain it is the latter situation and folks like Boehner and Bachmann in Congress, and Beck, Palin, Brewer, and Angle have all said how bad it is for the government to try to keep teachers teaching, then yes, we can blame them (amongst others)
We can’t assume Republicans are “ideologically opposed” to helping states or teachers. What we can conclude is that they are willing to oppose them, for some reason, which might be that they’re willing to make economic conditions worse to blame Dems and increase their chances of winning in November. I don’t think we should assume any good faith or “they just have a different point of view.”
Agreed. That’s why it is so very, very important that we finally elect a Democratic Congress this fall and a Democratic President in 2012.
I am tired of 10-12 years of ALL Republican rule.
Elect More Better Dems, 2010-2012.
Oh, now they’re thinking about saving teachers’ jobs? Alot of those people got their pink slips months ago. Some, who’s districts figured out how to save them instead of waiting for the States and the Feds to pony up, pull their hands out of their pants, got reinstated, rehired, finally…sooner than later. But, even those were put though emotional and financial turmoil for too long. Those teachers who are still waiting for the Feds to save them, well God Bless them is all I can say. How are any of those people supposed to plan their lives, let alone plan for a well deserved cheap ass vacation with their kids? How are they going to put money back into our economy? Shame on the government. Just. Shame, shame, shame. And, then they are going to turn our government over to a bunch of ill-educated people in 20, 30 years. Heaven help us.
Nope. Not gonna happen as the only persons I can vote for are incumbents and I want those fucktards OUT ON THEIR ASSES AND IN THE UNEMPLOYMENT LINES.
I despise the Democraps and Rethuglicans and will NOT vote for a single assclown who doesn’t spill their own blood, publicly, to fight for what is objectively right. No “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”, no “bipartisanship” bullshit. Pure, unadulterated Right Thing(tm).
As the assclowns on the ballot in my area are NOT of this type, no votes for Dems from me (3rd party all the way and that is only IF I vote). The Democraps have run out of rope as far as I’m concerned. Rethug, Democrap, there truly is no difference AT ALL.
Dems role over and play dead again? I’m shocked – SHO–ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Yes, it is.
OK, so Republicans are obstructionist, Krugman notes this, everyone sighs and resigns themselves to their fate. Their fate which was dictated by Republicans.
Republicans will not suffer for their obstructionism, because IT’S REALLY WANT DEMOCRATS WANT. Do you vote Democratic? Is this what you want?
Indeed, it actually IS…and the teabaggers are a creation of corporate GOP interests (Dick-head Armey and his be$te$t rich corporate robber baron buddies).
Just as the uneducated, ignorant, and ridiculous were easily taken in by Hitler and his simple solutions to faux “problems”, the teabaggers are easily taken in by the corporate criminals and their lackeys (Limbowel, Glen Beck, etc). It all leads, ultimately, to the same essential end.
So America can spend over $1.018 trillion on the wars, including lost billions for jobs and infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan and another $500 million for infrastructure in Pakistan (and all still go without water, electricity, and sewage treatment in all 3 countries) but in America the unemployed go begging, public school teachers get laid off, and our infrastructure continues to crumble around us? And all under a Democratic president and historically large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress?
Please, someone, help me with this cognitive dissonance before my head explodes.
Oh FUCK this! I’m back involved in politics.
(a Texas teacher ya know!)
So once again obama, republican in democrat clothing,lied when he stated that there would be no more off budget emergency war bills they would be included in the defense budget. Thanks for nothing, FAILURE.
What is an obama and who the hell knows?
Is Blue Texan emailing her posts to you to preview?
Edit Re post#2
Blue texan is a guy.
I agree friend. I won’t vote for them anymore either. They’re all lying shit bags. It’s always the same fucking tune. Vote for us and we blah blah blah. Tired of being stabbed in the back and front.
Lisa Derrick is upstairs!
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So what do we get when we trade hundreds of thousands of teachers for funds to fight 100 or so Al Qaeda in Afghanistan?
Per an article by Jon Boone in the guardian.co.uk, Sunday 18 July 2010
We get unchecked establishment of local militias
We get a huge increase in attacks on private development workers across the country (more than 30 workers killed in the first three months of the year)- a June that marked a record for Taliban attacks – up 51% on the previous year to 1,319 operations, with dead civilians up by 23%
today we got a suicide bomber that managed to evade Kabul’s new “ring of steel” – a series of police checkpoints designed to protect the city – and killed three civilians in a busy market. Local police said the bomber was on foot and it was not clear what his intended target was.
We get Nato saying it had intercepted a letter from Taliban leader Mullah Omar which ordered fighters to kill any Afghans working for foreign forces. A huge number of local nationals are employed as interpreters and logistics workers.
We got, in southern Afghanistan, insurgents staged a jailbreak by smuggling a bomb inside a prison, allowing 11 inmates to escape in the province of Farah, and in Kandahar a roadside bomb exploding near the city’s hospital, killing two police officers and a civilian, with Nato saying that one of its soldiers from an unidentified country was killed by a roadside bomb.
We got a Marjah, post its liberation, that has no security for local people, and where refugees can’t return to their homes.
And we got Petraeus ‘s use of local people to defend their own villages having the same effect that strategy had in ‘Nam in 63 with the South Vietnamese Self Defense Corps, including militia’s partnering with insurgents to steal from the local population.
THE ABOVE IS PARAPHRASED FROM THE ARTICLE.
You can’t have a completely corrupt political system if you start spending money on teachers. I thought everyone understood this. Much better to blow it on endless, unnecessary wars. Then you can talk about how tough you are on security as you drive the country into the ground.
As for Pelosi, someone should really start a list of how many times she has stabbed progressives in the back. This one has to count as a twofer. She managed to back more war and stick it to children and teachers at the same time.
Other great Pelosi moments are when she kept saying she was finally going to confront Bush over Iraq, when she dismissively said that she leads and we [progressives] advocate, when she backed the public option, or said DADT would only be a memory by December. Why do San Franciscans still vote for this shit?
How educated does a war culture need to be? Teachers are expendable. All for the glory of empire.
Indeed it is a completely corrupt political and economic system. Reform of such a system is a pipe dream. A more transformative solution is required.
That’s it you have teachers then the next thing you may have educated voters, see where it leads.
Will pass or will try to pass?
Are we in this fight or not?