The Nelson-Collins Cuts
By Brian Beutler
Josh Marshall got a hold of the Collins-Nelson group staff paper, outlining almost $80 billion in potential cuts to the stimulus. Maybe none of it will matter–Reid now seems to think he has the votes. But I just wanted to highlight a couple that jumped out at me:
No, please.
Update: Ryan Grim has more at HuffPo:
A discussion draft prepared by Nelson’s staff has been circulating and became public Thursday.A House Republican aide provided the Huffington Post with a copy of Nelson’s proposed cuts. The draft calls for billions in funding cuts for education, child care, law enforcement, Pell grants and aid to states, among other suggestions. The cuts total nearly $80 billion. See the document here.
Nelson spokesman Jack Thompson called the document irrelevant. “It’s several days old and not necessarily reflective of what’s in the bill. I don’t think it’s accurate to cite anything in the list. There isn’t a working plan that’s before them,” he told the Huffington Post.
“There have been changes made to the plan,” Thompson emphasized. The negotiations are ongoing, he said, and he wasn’t sure what specific changes had been made.
So: a). What Josh got a hold of isn’t necessarily reflective of what Collins and her posse might want to slash, and b). these items, and the numbers next to them, might no longer be operational. But it gives you a sense of what’s in the air. For instance, on page seven, Nelson lists Pell grants, but then recommends cutting them by zero percent, which suggests to me at least that the idea of slashing Pell has been floating around. Also, if the Nelson Democrats’ version of stimulus wouldn’t include the nearly $25 billion in state stabilization funds (which can be used to plug shortfalls of all kinds), then you can imagine what the Collins Republican version will look like.
55 Responses to “The Nelson-Collins Cuts”
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February 5th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
The state stabilization funds are, arguably, one of the most stimulative parts of the stimulus bill.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Cutting State Stabilization 100%? Danimal is right on the money.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
What the fuck is the point of even passing this thing if you don’t have state stabilization funds? Wasn’t that the core of the whole bill?
At some point don’t Democratic Senators have to start voting against this thing? If you’re cutting out aid to the states, help to stay on COBRA, TANF provisions, as well as the other smaller Democratic funding provisions, what are you really voting for?
At this point it seems like the Republican “tax cuts for the rich” provisions are getting close to overwhelming anything progressive in this bill. Why should Democratic Senators vote for, and why should Obama sign, a bill that might has well have been passed in 2005?
February 5th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Totally agree with commenters 1 and 3. My state desperately needs extra money and I know it’s not the only one. Cutting that would be completely insane. Don’t these people ever speak to the governors of their states?
February 5th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
simple. once the bill passes, zero out the funds for nebraska and maine.
that’s what their constituents obviously wanted…
February 5th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Attempts to cut out state stabilization funds should be the trigger for Obama to round up a bunch of GOP governors to go on the teevee with him. Like, RIGHT NOW.
That’s one of the MOST urgent parts of the bill. We can’t have states running basically a contractionary fiscal policy in the middle of this mess. That’s suicidal.
These assholes care nothing about the country, they just want opportunities to praise themselves for their “moderation”.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Fuck that shit.
Take it out for the Senate vote, put it right back in conference, and double-fucking-dog-dare the fuckers to filibuster it. Lobsterpot and Corn-Dogger can go jump if they think they’re going to be part of a ‘Gang of Four’ that bankrupts states where people actually live.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Attempts to cut out state stabilization funds should be the trigger for Obama to round up a bunch of GOP governors to go on the teevee with him. Like, RIGHT NOW.
Nthd. Crist, Pawlenty, Douglas, etc — and if Sarah Palin wants a continued political career, she should be pretty clear that her re-election campaign in 2010 depends upon that money. Let’s see where her priorities lie.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
These are possible proposed cuts that staff for the Nelson/Collins group came up with
In which case, they need to find new work. Their next working paper will suggest saving money on clothes by chopping off your legs.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
And how about the hacksaw they took to all the DoED spending – almost $20B in cuts. And all the money was doing in the first place was making up for part of the massive gap that already exists. More pink slips coming at my company if those cuts hold.
But hey, so long as those who are doing fine already get a few extra bucks in their pocket via tax cuts, everything is cool. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along…
February 5th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I can’t really express how much I loathe Susan Collins. She markets herself as “our senator.” What a sick joke. We are getting ready to lay off teachers in my kids’ Maine school because state funding to education has been cut. Christ she is an evil cow.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
On the other hand, if we’re going to look in at the sausage factory, we might as well see the pig dicks going into the mincer. More sunlight please: put the discussions on YouTube so that we can see how many morons work in the offices of the world’s greatest mass debating body.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
DTM,
Of course you’re right — so long as the money is in the final bill.
But there has to be some point at which a “compromise” is not worth the trouble. It is simply not worth passing a bill that’s primarily composed of huge tax cuts to the wealthy. If that’s the best Reid can do, I don’t think Obama should hesitate to send it right back. There is absolutely no reason to pass a Republican bill — one that will not actually stimulate the economy — when the Democratic party is sitting on this kind of political capital.
All of that said, yes, let’s see how this thing looks when the Senate passes a final version and it goes through conference.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I agree with DTM on basically every one of these threads.
I honestly have no idea what I’m supposed to be upset about at this point. To my eyes things seem to be basically on the track I would have expected if things were going pretty well.
I wonder if we Dems have just gotten so used to losing we see it around every corner.
Beyond a couple of cosmetic cuts (not saying contraception for poor women isn’t important, but it’s not central to the idea of stimulus), what negative events have actually transpired? Not talking about “who’s winning the news cycle” or other bits of modern political bloviaspeak, I’m talking about actual events.
What bad thing has happened to this point that should make me amend my belief that the stimulus bill written by the Democratic caucus is likely to pass in something very close to its original form? Or is that the bad thing??? I’m just confused.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Why does Ben Nelson hate renewable energy so much?
February 5th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
National Science Foundation (which even Newt Gingrinch has remarked as long underfunded) is also on the cutting block. This was a glimmer of hope in the midst of bad news for universities. Oh well.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I wonder if we Dems have just gotten so used to losing we see it around every corner.
Yes it’s like the wife who flinches even when the abusive husband is just reaching for his beer.
The Senate Republicans start talking shit and the nutsroots goes into full panic mode.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
The current situation is reminiscent of the Clinton administration’s early attempt overhaul health care. Republicans in congress decided it would be too politically damaging to allow him a major legislative victory, especially one that Americans would see as a great and positive change.
I hope the president is starting to understand that bipartisanship is a dead end. Congressional republicans do not respect good faith dealing; it has to be hardball. I fear he hasn’t internalized this yet. I will be ecstatic if I am proven wrong.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
what negative events have actually transpired?
Atmospherics aren’t the same as legislation, but they matter, because they establish precedent. The Village media has anointed Susan Collins and Ben Nelson the Most Bipartisan Senators Of All, which empowers them, like Goldilocks, to ransack the bears’ place, even though their tepid meat is more likely to give us all salmonella.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
These cuts don’t sound like a bad idea to me. State stabilization money can be added back later, the important thing is the other $800 billion gets passed. But I also totally agree with lobstakilla too.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
What the fuck is the point of even passing this thing if you don’t have state stabilization funds?
Well, pass the darn bill without state stabilization, then pass state stabilzation seperately, bearing in mind that a budget bill, as opposed to an emeergency spending measure, takes a bit more time but can’t, under the rules, be filibustered.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
When someone tells you that a document full of foolish and unpopular things is “several days old and not necessarily reflective of what’s in the bill,” they’re always lying. When has such a found document *not* been accurate in the end?
Democrats have to be more comfortable calling people (in this case, of course, another Democrat) liars when they lie. For some reason that’s the third rail of political discourse, even though the most common tactic in politics is lying. I’m hoping that Al Franken, given the title of his book, will help break this ridiculous taboo once he arrives, but the hegemonic Beltway norm against it seems pretty strong.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Totally agree with rea. Add the extra spending later. Happens all the time.
February 5th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Essential, crucial state stabilization funding to be passed “later”? Well, only if by “later” we’re talking a day or two later. That money is too important to risk waiting for this group of idiots to get around to passing separately.
February 5th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
I was going to write a snarky post about 1993, but I realize I don’t have any desire to be mean about this. Let me just point out that in February of 1993, Clinton had no health care bill. He was in litigation over the the very existence of the task force he had commissioned to write the bill.
Things may be not going how they would go according to our wildest dreams, but let’s be serious.
February 5th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
It won’t be added back in a day or two, there’s just no way of that happening. But it can be added back in supplemental spending bills. Is it crucial money? Yes. But not so crucial that it must be in the stimulus bill. States have been running deficits for almost a decade. We hit crucial a long time ago. What’s more important is getting over this hump.
February 5th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Well, be as mean as you want, but after a week watching the president apparently giving republican Judd Gregg whatever he wants so that he will agree to join the cabinet (WTF?) it appears — perhaps only to little old me — that Obama can indeed be played by these clowns. I know the man is wicked smart however so like I said, if the bill passes today largely intact, I’ll be thrilled to be proven wrong.
February 5th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
except the mainstream “village” media has very little influence these days.
I’ll believe that when Sally Quinn and David Broder go on permanent vacation.
February 5th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
36: This is the part that also makes no sense to me either. I think at this point I’d wait for him to resign from the Senate and then fire his ass at this point. That actually sounds like a great idea…
February 5th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
The extreme Right (as in Congressional Republicans) consider the actual political center to be “far Left” (they’d faint if they ever encountered someone from the actual Left). Because the GOPers are allowed to define everything, even Dems buy into the notion that the point lying between the *real* center and the extreme Right is, somehow, the home of “the centerists”. So, we’re (once again) having policy dictated by the political Right, wearing masks that imply that they represent the majority of Americans.
Am I wrong or did I dream that we just won the election, and in a landslide at that? How is it that the will of the people is being subverted again by these winger dickheads? If Obama is going to compromise with the extreme Right, then he should begin his bargaining from a position of the actual extreme Left, rather than starting on the Right and working his way even farther Right.
February 5th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Here is a simple rule to see if the Centrists want to cut it. Will the money possibly find its way into the hands of a negro?
If so then cut it.
February 5th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Will the money possibly find its way into the hands of a negro?
Don’t you mean “the coloreds”?
When someone tells you that a document full of foolish and unpopular things is “several days old and not necessarily reflective of what’s in the bill,” they’re always lying.
No shit. I’m sure you noticed the “not necessarily reflective” and “I don’t think” from Nelson’s flunky (flunkie?) That’s usually a tip-off that the document/rumor is accurate, and they’re trying to weasel-word around getting caught.
But I’d love to be wrong about that.
February 5th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
You guys are killing me. You rail about “bi-partianship” and when a Dem and Repub actually work on something together you all get crazy, and nothing has even happened yet. No wonder Liberals have a bad name, You guys make it too easy. Ranting and raving about a BS pork laden bill, and when some of the unnecessary items are cut you start crying like 4 yr olds that have to go to bed early. ROTFLMAO!!! Give me a stimulus bill with a mix of items that will actually stimulate the economy (not a liberal wish list) and tax cuts and then the entire country will be behind it. Why is that so hard to understand ???
February 5th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
One question about this free money for the states: won’t that encourage fiscally irresponsible states like California to borrow and spend even more next time, knowing that the Feds (i.e., tax payers in other states) will bail them out? Can you say Morale Hazard?
And no, Buetler, I’m still not interested. Aim a little lower with your kosher pickle.
February 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Give me a stimulus bill with a mix of items that will actually stimulate the economy (not a liberal wish list) and tax cuts and then the entire country will be behind it. Why is that so hard to understand ???
Because your premise does not make any sense nor have any truth value in the real world. Spending stimulates GDP about 2:1 vs tax cuts, with most types of tax cuts not even giving a 1:1 return on the money “spent”. (Those data come from Moody’s, that bastion of liberalism.) So before you start whining and crying about those big bad liberals (WAAHHH!)not giving you your tax cuts (WAAHHH!), you might ask someone with at least half a clue explain this to you, you WATB.
Of course, you’ll probably pick “Joe teh Plumber”, because you think he’s an economics genius, in addition to being an award-winning war correspondent.
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