Labor day sunday

GOP's CRAP-ON-Obama Stimulus!

The Real Story

Paul Krugman, The New York Times
03 September 10

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

Next week, President Obama is scheduled to propose new measures to boost the economy. I hope they're bold and substantive, since the Republicans will oppose him regardless - if he came out for motherhood, the G.O.P. would declare motherhood un-American. So he should put them on the spot for standing in the way of real action.

But let's put politics aside and talk about what we've actually learned about economic policy over the past 20 months.

When Mr. Obama first proposed $800 billion in fiscal stimulus, there were two groups of critics. Both argued that unemployment would stay high - but for very different reasons.

One group - the group that got almost all the attention - declared that the stimulus was much too large, and would lead to disaster. If you were, say, reading The Wall Street Journal's opinion pages in early 2009, you would have been repeatedly informed that the Obama plan would lead to skyrocketing interest rates and soaring inflation.

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Crap-O-il-BP!!

Crab-trap builder Shawn Platt's traps idle, Hopedale, Louisiana, 05/13/10. (photo: Getty Images)

BP Threatens to Cut Aid to Spill Victims If Not Allowed to Drill
By Joel Schectman, Newsweek
04 September 10

n what could be a new low at BP, the company said it may not be able to pay for the damages from the Deepwater Horizon if Congress prohibits it from drilling offshore. BP appears to be betting that the threat to renege on its cleanup and compensation promises will pressure Congress to allow the company to continue drilling in the gulf, despite having created the worst environmental catastrophe in history.

The House passed a bill in July that would prevent companies with more than 10 deaths at their facilities from getting permits to drill on the outer continental shelf. Only BP's record was poor enough to reach the threshold.

BP did not return calls for comment, but a spokesman told The New York Times: "I am not going to make a direct linkage to the $20 billion [compensation fund], but our ability to fund these assets and the cash coming from these assets that are securing these funds would be lost" if the House bill were enacted by the full Congress.

The oil giant's expectation that Congress will be cowed by the apparent intimidation tactic may be correct, as response from the Hill to the threat has so far been muted. "It's like Bonnie and Clyde saying we are not going to pay back the money we stole unless you let us keep robbing banks," Democratic Rep. George Miller of California, who added the language to the bill, told NEWSWEEK. "We need to be able to assure people in the gulf that the companies getting permits are safe. But this is absolutely a rogue company in how they ignore both safety and environmental regulations."

BP had $16.6 billion in profits in 2009.

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