Yet Another Interception For Heath As NC Awaits Touchdown

Heath Shuler may have defended his vote against the stimulus bill citing allegiance to his conservative district, but the Asheville Citizen-Times has come out in favor of the package. I fail to see how spending scads of dough when we need scads of dough spent qualifies as a irresponsible, but I’ll leave that to Heath to explain. Since he topped his claim that the package was too expensive with contradictory notion that it should spend more on infrastructure, I think he has plenty of ‘splainin’ to do. Finally, Shuler threw in some criticism of his party’s leadership to thicken the stew:

‘In order for us to get the confidence of America, it has to be done in a bipartisan way,’ Shuler said in Raleigh following an economic forum, according to the AP.

‘We have to have everyone — Democrats and Republicans standing on the stage with the administration — saying, “We got something done that was efficient, stimulative and timely.”‘

Here’s the kicker: ‘I truly feel that’s where maybe House leadership and Senate leadership have really failed.’”

Is this guy for real? He’s a Democrat, for God’s sake, and he’s been in Washington for the past two years, and he’s really going to try to pretend the GOP hasn’t been spending like drunken sailors? He’s going to get fiscally responsible with the party that has spent $3 trillion on unnecessary wars and tax breaks for the wealthy that, I might add, most assuredly did not help anyone? Seriously? I’m glad Congressional leaders are letting go of bipartisanship as a goal and getting on with the business of the people. It would be nice if everyone could get along, but getting the economy going is a little more crucial at this point.

Fortunately for Heathie’s district, someone else has noticed. The Citizen-Times summed it up nicely, though, mysteriously, it didn’t mention Shuler’s nay.

There’s no mistaking this is a genuine crisis. Almost 600,000 Americans lost their jobs in January, the single worst month in 35 years. North Carolina has nearly 400,000 workers on the unemployment rolls. All of those workers are finding it takes much longer to find a new job, and untold numbers are burning through whatever assets and options they have and will soon be facing the prospect of being without insurance and even homes.

Is this plan the solution? We can only hope, and wait. If nothing else, in the short run we hope it provides enough of a fix to a frayed societal safety net that many Americans won’t fall toward complete ruin.

In the slightly longer run, we hope it helps provide the solution to turning this wayward economic ship around: Jobs, jobs and more jobs.

It might be able to do that.”