I Hate Me Some Stupid

There's a reason I'm a registered Independent, folks. There's plenty of stupid on both sides. Democrats and Republicans are both capable of good ideas, but mostly we see forced choices between various bad ones. Democrats need to be careful. "Slightly better than Bush" is NOT a viable strategy for long term management, and I've called out the current administration multiple times for refusing to part ways with some of Bush's bad, bad ideas -- ideas that aren't just bad, but illegal and immoral.

Having said that, the GOP is just failing to make itself a responsible opposition party when the best ideas they can come up with for saving the country is crap like this.

If you missed last night's episode of Sean Hannity's Fox News show, you missed a fascinating "discussion" between Hannity, Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). As the Fox News personality explained, Shadegg and Vitter have come up with a "stimulus" plan that costs "zero dollars," and "promises to create two million new jobs without any of your money."

Shadegg explained this visionary approach to economic growth:

"With unemployment rates going up how can we produce American jobs? And the answer is we have had a non-energy policy in this country for a very long time. The reality is we are giving jobs to oil fieldworkers and natural gas fieldworkers in Russia and Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, when we should be putting those people to work here in the United States.

"Now Senator Vitter and I have drafted a bill that says let's put Americans to work, let's pursue the fight we had last summer of an all of the above energy strategy, let's clear the bureaucracy out of the way, and let's move forward with American jobs, producing American energy.... And we can also reduce the absurd regulations that go way too far."

And from there, the three of them spent the rest of the interview trying to undermine confidence in the economy, bashing Nancy Pelosi, and questioning the concept of economic stimulus.

It was one of those odd interviews in which members of Congress present a "plan" without actually talking about -- or even hearing any questions on -- what the "plan" is.

Apparently, Shadegg and Vitter, two of Congress' most right-wing members, believe they can address the severe, global economic downturn and create 2 million jobs by opening up additional coastal areas for oil drilling and stripping oil companies of federal regulations. This is their "stimulus" plan. They're so proud of it, they went on national television to boast about their ingenuity.

Despite everything that has happened in the last six months, the GOP still hasn't gotten past Drill Baby Drill. Throw out all the regs and rip up America's coastline and wilderness for oil. This is quite literally the best plan they have right now.

The Democrats aren't too much better. But they are better. At least we have a coherent, forward thinking plan to at least begin to tackle this problem. I shudder to think where we would be under President McCain right now: we'd be stuck with no stimulus, no bank plan, no budget (he would have vetoed it and instituted a spending freeze in the middle of a massive recession) and right now we'd be gridlocked on an express elevator to depression, if not a full blown financial collapse.

We still may be headed down that path, frankly. But President McCain would have upped the odds significantly of chaos.