Nelson Spokesperson: “He Is By No Means Backing Off The Cuts”
There seems to be some confusion about whether Dem Senator Ben Nelson — who’s leading an effort with GOP Senator Susan Collins to strip the Senate stimulus bill of millions of dollars in spending — is backing off the cuts outlined in that internal memo I wrote about below.
He isn’t.
Those cuts, as the memo details, would strip millions upon millions of dollars from everything from education programs to funds for the Violence Against Women Act to funds for Disability research.
I posed the question just now directly to Nelson press secretary Clay Westrope: Is Nelson, or is he not, backing off the cuts? He emailed me this:
He is by no means backing off the cuts. The Senators are still in negotiations to better target the recovery package toward truly stimulative items and looking at those programs that they don’t believe would create jobs, preserve jobs or quickly turn the economy around as potential cuts.
I’m not sure that could be clearer. The cuts are still on the table, they’re being negotiated over as we speak, and Senators are trying to see whether they can agree that those cuts are not stimulative enough and, hence, fit for elimination. And it’s worth reiterating that earlier today the same spokesperson told me that these cuts were being done explicitly to win over Republicans.
Separately, Talking Points Memo reports that the total in cuts being considered now is nearing $100 billion.
My understanding is that the total package as we speak is at about $900 billion. Collins agrees that she can vote for a package near $800 billion. Nelson is asking for about $100 billion in cuts. It all makes sense and there’s no controversy here. Reid will get his 60 votes, including a Repub or three, once he cuts $100 billion from the bill.
but what will the 100 billion be?
ehhh – who cares? A few billion here, a few there . . . Can’t the ‘****’ [perpetual Dem wish list stuff] simply be passed later by different means? I imagine that Nelson and Collins and Webb will get precisely what they request. Reid has apparently guaranteed passage and in doing so has painted himself into a corner. He HAS to accept their cuts to get this thing passed because failure to pass now would be devastating to Obama and all congressional Dems; notsomuch to Repubs – they’re already in the ******* (just wanted to see if your screen would pick that up). Dems need to remember a lesson of Sun Tzu: always leave your enemy an escape path else he fight to the death.
And Greg – since when do you believe in these media analyses by partisan and unreliable groups such as ThnkProgress? They’ve already had to adjust their numbers which don’t include the regular news shows at any rate and count only lawmakers and not Dem/Lib ’strategists’. Do you even know their methodology? Can Repubs help it if they’re just natrurally photogenic?
I am going to work my azz off in 2010 just so we can get to 61 Dem Senators so they can kick Ben Nelson’s azz out of the caucus. If he changed to Republican would anybody even notice?
My hope for the next election is that we can get enough Senators to throw this jackass over the side.