By James Donahue

A commentary by AlterNet’s Doug Kreeger accuses the old guard Republicans of being clearly willing to let America collapse rather than let the new Obama Administration have any chance of fixing the mess left by George W. Bush & Co.

Kreeger writes: “By standing together in opposition to the stimulus package, they showed the world that they haven’t at all joined the momentum of the new administration; rather they are still playing politics and are focused on the 2010 elections. Their objections to the stimulus have nothing to do with trying to solve this crisis.”

Indeed, a coalition of Obama blockers, perhaps led by lunatic radio mouth Rush Limbaugh, is currently conducting a telephone siege of the Senate switchboard, calling for the Senate to reject the stimulus plan. Yet polls indicate that a majority of Americans support the plan. Thus the danger is that the Senate may misread the thinking of their constituents and that even the Democratic Senators will turn their backs on this important piece of legislation.

If it happens, you can be sure the substitute plan that gets drafted will be more of the same old same old, with our tax dollars pouring into the pockets of the rich and nothing left to generate jobs, house homeless families, feed the poor or generate affordable health care for all Americans.

At stake is the biggest and boldest progressive legislation in over 40 years. The Obama plan includes:

--$142 billion for a middle-class tax cut

--$47 billion to extend unemployment benefits

--$16 billion to expand food stamps

--$17 billion in one-time payments to low-income Americans

--$26 billion to expand access to health care

--$87 billion to help states pay for Medicaid

--$24 billion to modernized health information technology

--$46 billion to fix bridges and roads

--$80 billion to improve public education

--$19 billion for school construction

--$14 billion to make college more affordable

--$32 billion for clean energy

Those are just the highlights and nearly all of it part of the package Mr. Obama campaigned for, and voters elected him to accomplish. The plan is estimated to create or save 3 to 4 million jobs and hopefully stop the nation’s economy from sliding into a lengthy and severe depression.

The ultra-conservative “wish list” recently proposed by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina would be to make the Bush tax cuts (mostly for the rich) permanent, lower capital gains taxes and enrich large corporations at a cost estimated by the Center for American Progress to hit $3.1 trillion.

The crooks that have had control of the national treasury need to be stopped once and for all. Americans need to get involved if they truly want to save America. That means pick up the telephone, call 202-224-3121 or 866-544-7573 and tell your senators to stand with President Obama on his stimulus plan.