I hate the fact that I am in a sort of agreement with the Repubs, for that I will wash my mouth out with soap, but not for the same reasons that they shout about.

There is the undeniable fact that very little in the so-called stimulus bill actually “stimulates” job creation. Much of the spending is for what would have been called, in the terminology of the New Deal, emergency relief—that is, money payments to the unemployed, extensions of healthcare benefits, expansion of Food Stamps.

The Republican opposition to these provisions only demonstrates the let-them-eat-cake mentality of the most predatory sections of the US financial aristocracy. But these measures were devised by the Obama administration to buy time, to avoid an immediate collapse in consumer spending that would have irreparable effects, on both the functioning of the profit system and the political stability of the United States. They do not constitute a serious program for reviving the US economy.

Obama closed his Denver speech with populist demagogy directed at his predecessor. He declared, “unlike the tax cuts that we’ve seen in recent years, the vast majority of these tax benefits will go not to the wealthiest Americans, but to the middle class, with those workers who make the least benefiting the most.”

This rhetoric ignores two facts: the actual amount of the tax cut for working people, $400 per individual and $800 per family, is derisory. It is not enough to make a single mortgage or rent payment for most households. And the new administration has apparently already abandoned its pledge to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich, preferring to allow the tax cut to expire as scheduled under current law at the end of 2010, giving the wealthy two additional years of a bonanza at the expense of the Treasury, at a time when resources are desperately needed for working people.

In the short term, Obama’s promise of the “beginning of the end” may deceive some of the people. In the longer term, however, it will be utilized by his ultra-right critics in an effort rebuild their shattered political credibility. Thus Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele declared that the stimulus package might provide a “slight bump” in the economy, but no lasting benefits. “There will be a slight uptick, it will flat-line, and it will continue to go down,” he said.

Sad to say that I agree that this may not be the savior that we all hope it will be.