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Sunday morning's lineup on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" had a full roundtable of heavy hitters: Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana represented the Democrats, while Sen. Richard Shelby sat in for Republicans and US Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue gavethe business perspective.
McCaskill more than held her own in this discussion, coming to the defense of Democrats in the Seanate and President Obama on the stimulus, the budget, tax cuts and spending for the economy.
The discussion focused heavily on the financial crisis, with Shelby sticking to a conservative position of "shutting down" failed banks. He said he doesn't support nationalization, which Stephanopoulos seems to think has already happened with Citibank.
On the budget, Shelby was vociferous in defending his earmarks, which he hasm more of than 40 Senators, pointed out Stephanopoulos. McCaskill said real earmark reform means Republicans will have to stop using it as a political wedge and cut their own earmarks out of appropriations. Shelby said Senators should have the power of appropriation in the budget.
Bayh opposed approving a $400 billion bill to continue funding the government, which is loaded with earmarks. The position of the Democrats is to move ahead with all the earmarks in the bill just to keep the government going. Bayh said that is not prudent.
Bayh says we have to stabilize the banks to avoid "collateral damage," and says certain operations are "too big to fail."
Donohue defended TARP and the big banks and the Big Three, and took a shot at the UAW, arguing GM has to "be willing to be very very tough" on the auto workers and the dealers.
He also said we have to straighten out some of the big banks. We have to get the asset lenders back in business for the 25 million small businesses that create jobs, he said.
McCaskill and Bayh were very adept at supporting President Obama on the economy and his plans regarding healthcare reform, the budget, and other issues on his agenda. Their message overall on the economy was very unified.
Obama inherited the deficit and the economy, they remind viewers.
On card checks for unions, under the Employee Free Choice Act that unions are pushing to pass Congress, McCaskill pointed out an interesting fact: businesses can use a card check to get rid of or decertify a union, but the workers have to have a secret ballot vote to approve a union.
On the wrap-up roundtable, George Will and Cokie Roberts were joined by David Brooks, the conservative of the New York Times, and EJ Dinne of the Washington Post, a liberal.
Stephanopoulos showed video clips of all the Rush Limbaugh back and forth. George Will starts off saying Limbaugh is being overblown because the GOP is experiencing a power vacuum after the loss in 2008.
Dionne says Rush is way more important association for conservatives than Ayers or Wright ever were for Obama. Shouldn't Republicans be asked how they stand on Rush?
David Brooks says Obama looks like a hypocrite for playing politics, sending Rahm Emanuel on the attack against Rush. Obama cast himself as above politics, he reminds us.
In memoriam and the Sunday funnies, lots of video clips at the end of the show, as usual.
Here's the link to the ABC website where you can watch videos from this week's porgram.
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