The coming week will test the strength of President Obama and the Democrats: Will they lose their nerve, or will they face down a rapidly forming conventional wisdom that would allow them to claim victory only if their economic stimulus package passes with substantial Republican support?/p>
. . . The president's quest for a new tone in Washington also has a practical motive. He believes that economic recovery is about psychology as well as money and that Americans will have more confidence in the future if they see the nation's politicians cooperating to resolve the crisis. This may be true, but it creates a problem. If achieving bipartisanship takes priority over the actual content of policy, Republicans are handed a powerful weapon. In theory, they can keep moving the bipartisan bar indefinitely. And each concession to their sensibilities threatens the solidarity in the president's own camp.
That's why last week's unanimous House Republican opposition to the stimulus plan was so important. For the most part, the Republicans escaped attack for rank partisanship. Instead, what should have been hailed as an administration victory was cast in large parts of the media as a kind of defeat: Obama had placed a heavy emphasis on bipartisanship, and he failed to achieve it.
The administration's assumption is that the Senate will make modest changes in the bill -- adding a few tax cuts and shaving some spending to appease Republicans -- and that the package will arrive on the president's desk having received enough cross-party support to carry that treasured bipartisan label. This process could have the ironic effect of making the package even bigger, because of the inclusion of extra tax cuts and infrastructure spending meant to win over Republican senators. The GOP may be rhetorically anti-government, but its politicians still love to deliver roads, bridges and water projects. That might be an acceptable outcome for the White House, since there is a strong strain of economic opinion that views the current stimulus plan, large as it is, as still too small to give the economy the jolt it needs.
. . . No doubt our supremely calm president is certain that, in the end, all will be well. But Rahm Emanuel, his spirited chief of staff, had it right: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Just how high a price is Obama willing to pay for a handful of Republican votes?
(Emphasis supplied.) In my view, President Obama paid too high a price in his opening bid -- his initial proposal was woefully inadequate and the current House bill will fail, imo. But Dionne points to an important potential saving moment for Obama and the Democrats - Senate Republicans (and Blue Dogs like Ben Nelson and Clair McCaskill) want to expand the bill (the problem is they want to cut out significant programs, claiming they do not belong in a stimulus bill. Assuming they are right, which I think they aren't, what difference does it make what bill the programs are in?
President Obama has a path to fixing his own inadequate plan and achieving the "bipartisanship" he craves - agree to the extra spending Senate Republicans are demanding while rejecting the cuts they want. Now there is bipartisan compromise we can all believe in.
The biggest fear I have is that no one in Washington seems to grasp the magnitude of the problems we face in the economy. When FDR came to Washington in 1933, he understood the severeness of the crisis before him. And acted accordingly. He did not strive for "post partisan unity," he strove for solutions.
When it comes to the economic stimulus, President Obama has been more about post partisan unity than actual solutions. That has to change. NOW.
Speaking for me only
