A net loss of 1.772 million jobs in the last 3 months

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598k in the last month, plus the previous months were revised downwards another 311k.

That is the worst 3 month record since the end of World War II.

Only 2.1 million jobs were created in the 8 years of the Bush administration, an average of only 1.05 million a term. The last 4 Democratic Presidential terms averaged 10.7 million jobs per term.

Bush sure left this country in a fine shape.

And the libreal democrats don't have an answer.   

What leaders we have huh?

They do have an answer unfortunately some people think following the same Bush mantra of cutting taxes will create jobs...

[Smash255]

The problem lies in two areas.

1) Democrats are more ideologically diverse than the Republican Party. There are far more Conservative Democrats than Liberal Republicans, and it's because of this that it's harder to keep Democrats in line when it comes to voting on an issue. Republicans are fairly easy to rally because they usually fall in lock-step with one another for the better of the party, as opposed to the Blue Dogs who tend to waffle and waver. This leads to problem...

2) Republicans will filibuster unless Dems can get a large amount of votes in the Senate. If there was no filibuster Democrats would probably ram a much more liberal bill down the House and Senate, but Republicans are forcing the ideologically diverse Dems to not only keep the Moderates/Blue Dogs in line, but also recruit Republicans. (Plus Republicans are trying to delay and fcku up the Minnesota race endlessly to keep an extra vote out.)

On other issues there shouldn't be a problem (unless Republicans decide to filibuster everything like the assholes they are) getting something passed. Like the Fair Pay Act or SCHIP expansion.

Again, I guess I just don't get why the filibuster is so scary. For one thing, they aren't really going to tie up the entire Senate for the next 2 years on this one bill; eventually they'd have to give in and stop filibustering, out of sheer fatigue if nothing else.

And even if they don't, let them be obstructionists and get the blame for going against the stated wishes of the people on the last Election Day. And yes, I held the same view on this 4 years ago, though obviously the Republicans had a much smaller majority both in the Presidential Election and in Congress then, so less of a "mandate" and so should've been expected to be doing more compromising than the Democrats are now.

So, maybe I'm missing something, as to why people just assume the majority party is the one who has to back down when there is a threat of a filibuster. I would assume the logic is that people figure the majority party will be blamed for any failure to "get things done", even if it's caused by the minority party, but I'd think that's not necessarily going to be true.

Its a bit of a catch 22 at this poiny.  On one hand I would love to see the Dems push hard for the Stimulus bill as originally constructed and basically force the GOP to crack eventually, however the economic situation has gotten so bad we really don't have time to sit around and wait for someone to crack.  On other issues, now that is a different story. 

[Smash255]

But if we do act with something that is half-assed, we risk making everything worse or have very little impact, and the voters would hand the economy to the party that got us in this mess. What can we do?

Exactly why I said it was a catch 22.  I would much rather the original bill, it would be better for our economy with the original bill and I wish we could stick it to the GOP & force it to be past.  Unfortunately the economic situation has gotten so out of control we don't have that option and this bill is better than not doing anything.  Harry Reid being weak doesn't help things, but time is simply not on our side here.