Sitting Down With the Borg--But the Borg Never Sits

IF the Stimulus passes the Senate, the Majority will have one more chance to come together and act as such, and the President will have one more chance to shut down his post-partisan fantasy game to get this thing done before the economy ends up at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Hopefully, the President has learned that making overtures to a political party led by a morbidly-obese drug addict radio clown is not the same thing as charming Harvard dons toward a compromise on the editorial policy of the law review. Perhaps he has learned that this crowd of greedy fascists will sacrifice anything, including health of the country, to regain power--and that negotiations with the Borg always end up with the same broken record from the other side: More tax cuts for the rich; resistance is futile.

Perhaps if the guts of the Dems can be girded next week, we may see the billion dollars of early childhood/head start cuts put back into the Bill, along with the other $40 billion or so in education cuts. I say put all the education cuts back in and pass it. Then let the Opposition filibuster if they will. It is past time to take off the gloves.

From CQ Politics:

. . . .The compromise would cut $108 billion from the original Senate bill, including $83 billion in spending and $25 billion in tax measures.

The single biggest spending cut would come out of a fund meant to help states avoid cuts to their own spending, especially in schools and universities. The compromise trims that funding to $39 billion, a $40 billion reduction, according to a chart distributed by Sen. Ben Nelson , D-Neb., one of the authors of the compromise. The House provided $79 billion in the version of the stimulus it approved Jan. 28.

Funding to increase broadband access in rural areas and other underserved areas would be reduced by $2 billion, from $9 billion to $7 billion. That’s still more than twice as much as the $3.2 billion in the House bill.

The Senate proposal also trims funding for the Byrne justice grant program, which provides assistance to various law enforcement programs. The compromise cuts $450 million from the Byrne grants, reducing funding from $1.5 billion to $1.05 billion, according to Nelson’s chart. The House allocated $3 billion for Byrne grants.

Other changes to the Senate plan would include scrapping a provision that allowed some business tax credits to be carried back for five years instead of one and accelerating use of low-income housing tax credits, saving $9 billion; scaling back a subsidy under the COBRA program, which provides health insurance for people who lose their jobs, to 50 percent of the premium, down from 65 percent, saving $5 billion; and setting the phase out for a new payroll tax credit at $70,000 for individuals and $140,000 for couples, instead of $87,500 and $175,000, saving $2 billion. . . .