And So It Begins

Nancy Pelosi is talking stimulus bill and the translation into English goes something like this: "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." She wants a big government, Keynesian type stimulus (of the same variety that we just had and that GWB shamefully agreed to) asap so it can hit before Christmas and she's making a grudging bow to bipartisanship by saying that she'd like to follow up with a tax cut stimulus later when the Dems start up the new Congress in January with bigger majorities. Sure she does. It is a head fake, a gambit, a ruse. She will pocket the Keynesian waste of time/money and screw the tax cut later after several stupid Republicans have been snookered.

So here should be the Republican response, from Congress on up to the White House: "You can have all the Keynesian stimulus you want as soon as you want it so long as any first round of stimulus has two of the following three:
- make permanent the current dividend and capital gains tax rates
- lower the corporate tax rate to 25%
- make permanent the current individual marginal tax rates

Pick any two. Otherwise no dice, and you can wait 'til January to get something done. Then McConnell and whoever leads the House needs to hold the troops in line and not be a bunch of wimps.