Rachel Maddow Exposes GOP Welfare Queens Who Attacked Obama's Stimulus, Yet Enjoyed Billions in Benefits

Editor's note: The following is a transcript from the Rachel Maddow Show. 

At the top of the show today, we talked about the myth of bipartisanship, the futility of Democrats, including the president, wasting time trying to persuade Republicans to go along with them on policies that are good for the country.

It totally makes sense in the abstract if people can agree on what needs to be done to solve the country‘s problems than those policies, even if they‘re big policies, should get votes from everyone who‘s in agreement.

In the abstract that‘s how it works. In Washington, that is not at all how it works. Republicans proposed a deficit commission. President Obama endorsed the idea so then Republicans decided they‘re against it.

Republicans proposed pay-as-you-go rules for budgeting. President Obama endorsed the idea. Then Republicans decided they were against it too. Republicans who voted for the bank bailout are now criticizing President Obama for that same bank bailout.

Republicans supported President Bush‘s policy of trying terrorism suspects in U.S. courts. Now that President Obama is implementing that same policy, they decided they‘re against that now, too.

Republicans supported a cap-and-trade policy against global warming. Now that President Obama is trying to pass that same policy, Republicans have decided - say it with me now - they‘re against that, too.

See the pattern here? What Republicans are doing on policy is no longer interesting. It is so thoroughly unrelentingly, consistently predictable that anyone who thinks it‘s an open question as to what Republicans are going to do about the next legislation that‘s proposed just is not paying attention.

Let me be emphatic here. Let me be emphatic about one particular example, the stimulus. The stimulus passed despite every single Republican in the House voting no on it - everyone.

Since then, the consensus among economists is that stimulus has worked, even though it‘s maybe been too small. The consensus among Republicans is that it‘s been a horrible giant thing that hasn‘t done anything good at all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think everybody would agree now that the stimulus hasn‘t worked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: $800 billion pork leg in stimulus bill - it was supposed to create jobs.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ): With a stimulus package that has done so well, we now have 10.2 percent unemployment.

REP. PHIL GINGREY (R-GA): The vaunted Democratic stimulus bill has failed to stimulate anything other than a few federal bureaucrats.

SEN. MIKE JOHANNS (R-NE): Many warned as did I that the stimulus would amount to a mountain of wasted money.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you tell me where the stimulus money is?

REP. JOHN LINDER (R-GA): The $787 billion stimulus package only stimulated more welfare.

REP. GLENN THOMPSON (R-PA): We‘re united in imposing the massive waste-filled stimulus, or as I prefer to call it, stimu-less bill.

MADDOW: If there‘s one thing that Republicans agree on now, it is that the stimulus is a bad, bad policy. It‘s a bad idea that does bad things. It‘s a bad president‘s bad way of making a bad economy more bad because he‘s bad. Stimulus bad.

Also? Stimulus good. What you‘re looking at here are pictures of the same Republicans who have trashed the stimulus as a bad, bad thing in their home districts taking credit for all the good things the stimulus has done.

That‘s Bobby Jindal there, governor of Louisiana who has railed against the stimulus, then gone around the state handing out big fake checks with his own name on them as if the money came from him instead of from the stimulus that he‘s been railing against.