Democrats Ram Through Stimulus in House Vote

GOP Minority Leader John Boehner gave a great speech today on the floor of the House of Representatives: "Eleven-hundred pages and not one member of this body has read it, not one" (see 4:45 minutes at the video). Boehner then slammed the bill down on the floor of the chamber! CNN replayed this clip a half-dozen times while reporting on the vote this morning:

The New York Times has the story:

The House approved a $787 billion economic stimulus package Friday afternoon, with Democrats successfully promoting it as a boost for middle-class Americans and Republicans countering in vain that it will only stimulate wasteful government spending.

The vote was 246 to 183, reflecting the Democrats’ considerable majority in the House and the Republicans’ deep dissatisfaction with the measure, whose estimated price tag has fluctuated daily and was finally placed at $787 billion on Friday. Not a single Republican voted in favor of the bill ....

"After all the debate, this legislation can be summed up in one word: Jobs," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said. "The American people need action and they need action now."

But Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader, lamented that a bill that was supposed to be about “jobs, jobs, jobs” had turned into one that was about “spending, spending, spending.”

“We owe it to the people to get this bill right,” Mr. Boehner said.

As CNN reports, "the written version of the legislation wasn't available for lawmakers to view until around 11 p.m. Thursday." Indeed, as Nina Easton points out, the Democrats don't want debate and deliberation, they want speed:

There is a breadth and breathlessness to these under-takings, a frenzy of policymaking that will shape the contours of America's economic future. Top Obama advisors who talked (often as they walked) with Fortune in early February put a premium on speed - speed to catch the right moment to turn around a deepening recession, speed to take advantage of this moment of crisis to put in place a Democratic vision of government's role, speed to pass major legislation while the President is riding high in the polls.