There should also be a law passed that states if Republicans obstruct a bill they may not be allowed to take credit for it if it passes. I knew this was coming, didn't you?

Last week, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) slammed President Obama’s recovery and reinvestment plan. “Hold on to your wallets folks because with the passage of this trillion-dollar baby the Democrats will be poised to spend as much as $3 trillion in your tax dollars,” Bond said. “Unfortunately, this bill stimulates the debt, it stimulates the growth of government, but it doesn’t stimulate jobs,” Bond insisted.

However, today Bond is touring Missouri to tout the very stimulus plan he railed against. In a press release, Bond boasted about an amendment he included in the bill to provide more funding for affordable housing — and that will create jobs:

Last week, Bond led a bipartisan group of Senators in introducing an amendment to help provide needy families affordable housing. Bond’s amendment provides $2 billion to fund low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) projects that have been stalled by the financial credit crisis. As part of the Democrats’ spending bill now signed into law, the Senate unanimously accepted Bond’s provision. […]

This provision will have a real impact in Missouri, especially for low-income, working families in need of safe and affordable housing. … Bond’s amendment will save more than 700 housing units and create 3,000 new jobs in Missouri.

“This is the type of emergency stimulus spending we should be supporting — programs that will create jobs now and help families,” Bond said.

I love the fact that Goober Graham is gladly taking the money:

– Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who also campaigned ardently against the bill, said he would nevertheless gladly accept its funds for his state. “You don’t want to be crazy here,” he said.

And Digby finds this nugget about the psycho right wing Govenors that may want to refuse some of the money. Stupidly, Clyburn , inserted a clause in the bill that says legislator's can override the Governor and accept the money. I know he was just looking out for the people in the states where Republicans are more interested in playing politics than helping their constituents.

In fact, governors who reject some of the stimulus aid may find themselves overridden by their own legislatures because of language Clyburn included in the bill that allows lawmakers to accept the federal money even if their governors object.

He inserted the provision based on the early and vocal opposition to the stimulus plan by South Carolina's Republican governor, Mark Sanford. But it also means governors like Sanford and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal — a GOP up-and-comer often mentioned as a potential 2012 presidential candidate — can burnish their conservative credentials, knowing all the while that their legislatures can accept the money anyway.

I guess these people are placing their political bets on the economy not being so bad that they get blamed, but still bad enough that they can blame Obama. It's quite tight rope they're walking.

If the Democrats were as ruthless and reckless with other people's lives as the Republicans are, they wouldn't have put that clause in the legislation and would have let the Republicans pay the price for this nonsense. You know if the shoe were on the other foot, the GOP kamikazees would have forced the Dems to bear the brunt of such a decision. But then, that's the reason why the country is in this catastrophic mess in the first place isn't it? The Republicans just don't give a damn about the people they are supposed to be representing.

Amen.