First they take the lead from their king:
(h/t Bob)
Then they eliminate the key facts:
Only the stimulus package to be approved this week, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates approved in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $8 trillion in commitments are lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the authority of the Fed and the FDIC. The recipients’ names have not been disclosed.
And then it just takes Rush and his followers (ie: Republican Senators and Congressmen) to go out and say that “this stimulus bill will cost us $9.7 trillion dollars!!!”. That is exactly what we can expect for the next few days. See, that quote above is from the actual article that Drudge links to. The $9.7 trillion is a number from a bunch of different places, with the largest amount coming from the Fed and FDIC, of which a lot was already spent under the former Republican President. As matter of fact less than 1/4 of that was passed by Congress, and I don’t think President Obama has blown through $8 trillion in under a month, or else I would be leading the scream for his impeachment.
So the Republicans are going to take this mind numbing number of $9.7 trillion and spin it into being $9.7 trillion the Democrats have spent! Just wait and see. What will even be more interesting is to see how John McCain approaches this. Remember, $700 billion of this number was spearheaded by his suspension of his campaign. Now that the American people clearly told him NO, we can expect to see him become even more of a conservative – something else the American people have said NO too.