Not one Republican vote for the House stimulus. Nada. Zip. The press report it as the end of the Obama dream of changing the tone in Washington and bringing in a bipartisan consensus. Nothing like a quick verdict that. Even after Obama dangled some tax cuts in front of Boehner and the boys, they still did what opposition parties do, they opposed.
From where I stand though, that’s not such a bad thing. Now the Administration can get down to simply worrying about making sure the stimulus does what it says on the tin. Reflate the economy. Getting the most effective package passed and implemented well is more important than winning Republican votes. Americans care a lot more about their jobs than they do about seeing donkeys and elephants holding hands under the Capitol. The best route Obama can take to bringing Republicans around is by getting the economy turned around.
So the big question is will the stimulus do the trick? Is it big enough? Is it funding the right types of investments? Can it be spent well and perfomance managed so we can measure its impact? That is really all that matters because if it doesn’t get the economy back into the black, Obama will find it hard to win Democratic votes for further reform, let alone Republican ones.
There is a lot riding on this so my hope is the Senate can inflate the House proposal further, put more into infrastructure and spending for the most vulnerable populations. Bigger and better so when it hits the President’s desk it seems fit for the task at hand. You don’t get many shots at the apple so this one has to be good. The path to changing Washington comes through success, not photo ops with the other party.
We must hope that the Obama people do a better job of communicating the benefits of this than the Clinton people did in 1993. Clinton’s ineffectiveness in that department led, I believe, to the GOP takeover in 1994.
Even with superb communication, they’d be communicating up the hill of Sisyphus because the media is more interested promoting the minority set of views.
The budget battle was a win for Clinton…I believe. It was more the gays in the military, plus the staggering corruption of the Capitol Hill Democrats that caused the 1994 “wave” — which did not near the Democratic dominance in the Congress today.
Emmanuel should have put the brakes onn the nonsense, god only knows what he was thinking. Everyone I talk to and even the left of center talking heads are becoming skeptics saying that the president must immediately rein in this soon to be train wreck. One misstep after another.
Richardson, Geithner, now Daschle. Iran is urinating on his shoes and telling him to peddle his papers somewhere else and Benjamin Netanyahu is telling everyone to get their geiger counters and room sealer gear out. More bank collapses. Should be an interesting 100 days.
Pork is spending intended to benefit a specific district, generally inserted by congressmen from that district.
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p>Where’s the pork?
Barney Frank agreed with you when he addressed the SEIU 615 delegate assembly yesterday. (The Women got it.) Then left for DC to expound more on his analysis of bipartisanship to appear on George Stephanopoulos show this morning. I’m going to be traveling to Worcester to work with some wonderful young people who are already working to increase civic participation of other young people. I’m told we have to break up early for the super bowl. “You know what that is don’t you Ms Meredith?”
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p>Watch Barney on George’s show and if somebody puts it up on you tube for me that would be great.