Stimulus Bill

After losing out first 6 or 7 games, my high school football coach would spend about an hour each week trying to fire us up by "reminding" us of what we had all said we wanted back before the season had started. He'd say something like "Didn't we all say that we were going to work hard and do whatever it takes, sacrifice whatever it takes to be a winning team?", things like that. "Didn't we say we'd run wind sprints for 2 hours every day if that's what it took to get better?" During these talks my buddy Robert and I would give each other the "What? we never said that!" look to each other. And as well-intentioned as I'm sure we were, I can promise you at no point did we announce to the coach that we would practice three times a day if that meant getting better, yet he'd bring it up later that that's what we wanted.

That's what I think about as I'm hearing the Republican Senators trying to block the stimulus plan by claiming that their constituents abhor any more government spending and wish to kill the stimulus. Which means either these are Senators of states with 0% unemployment, or they're kinda talking outta their asses. I have my doubts as to whether any of these people have any idea what people from their states want, as I doubt they're hanging out at diners "talking to the folks" as much as they like to say they are. Once they've been elected, they kinda run off and do what they want, and then say things like "that's what the people from the great state of _________ want me to do!!" Well, do they really? I mean, have you ever heard your senator say that, and then yell "hey - THAT'S not why you were elected!!!!!"? No - chances are if your senator says "I was elected because the people from my state want M&Ms to be discontinued!!", you don't call bullshit on him. You just assume shit, I guess I'm the only one around here that's FOR M&Ms. You assume that there's a ton of people that stood up and said "no M&Ms!" But there's no real way of knowing if that's what the people really wanted or not, and the shit just rolls on, and we all know how impossible it is to get these people out of Congress once they're in.

Ironically enough tho, some of the rare instances of people waking up and voting while pointedly saying "I want you out, I don't like what you're doing" was in the 2006 & 2008 races. Which makes me wonder why anyone would think that drawing a line in the sand with a partisan "fuck you!!!" would impress the people in his state more than actually passing a good bill that would create as many jobs as possible and get money flowing back into his state. I've never heard anyone say "yeah, this program created this great job for me and saved my house, but I'd have given it all up if Senator _______ had blocked the bill as hard as possible and put on a great show of partisanship just for the sake of partisanship." I gotta feeling that when these Senators are saying things like "the folks from my state don't want anymore spending!!", the "folks" are giving each other the same looks my buddy Robert and I gave each other in football practice. "Hmm. Really?"

I'm all for bi-partisanship. But someone needs to explain to me at what point stamping your feet on the floor and pouting while demanding to be a big part of the conversation just for the sake of having your voice heard makes more sense than pushing a bill that could actually help the very people whose vote you're gonna be competing for soon.