Obama has a very different problem with Congress than GWB had. If he is serious about trying to get things done-he has to do it in a better manner than the Stimulus Bill got done. Besides wondering if Paul Krugman may actually be right about it ( its not big enough and has too many tax cuts) , there is a bigger problem that the current debate highlights:
And the rhetorical response of conservatives to the stimulus plan — which will, it’s worth bearing in mind, cost substantially less than either the Bush administration’s $2 trillion in tax cuts or the $1 trillion and counting spent in Iraq — has bordered on the deranged……..
And the ugliness of the political debate matters because it raises doubts about the Obama administration’s ability to come back for more if, as seems likely, the stimulus bill proves inadequate.
For while Mr. Obama got more or less what he asked for, he almost certainly didn’t ask for enough. We’re probably facing the worst slump since the Great Depression. The Congressional Budget Office, not usually given to hyperbole, predicts that over the next three years there will be a $2.9 trillion gap between what the economy could produce and what it will actually produce. And $800 billion, while it sounds like a lot of money, isn’t nearly enough to bridge that chasm.
Here is the political problem as I see it-because Nancy Pelosi got her named attached to what can only be accounted as a poor start to the bill in the first place, Obama will be handicapped in trying to do other things as the year goes on. There’s better Democrats in Congress ( Just as their are better Republicans than Mitch McConnell). How does the majority party get saddled with a worthless whore loser in the Speaker’s Chair?
It is not so much what she put in the bill to start with-it is the fact that idea of her trying to act out of a sense of partisan vindictivness is totally believable. People still remember most of the other windmills she has tilted at in the past. Her whiny, snide, holier than thou tone of voice totally undermines the Presidents more high minded tone.
She’s weak. Politically, as well as intellectually. She handed 30+ Republicans something to rally around and the worst part is that she did not even realize she was doing it. Which I find totally amazing for someone who supposedly has been around a while. The President would have lost nothing had taking a much stronger hand in writing the original House bill, keeping out provisions that Republicans would later use to portray it as stuffed with pork and programs that had little to do with the economy. If poor little Nancy got her feelings hurt, so what? Where is she going to go to? The other side?
I repeat my earlier contention-Obama needs to find a way to show Pelosi who is boss. Or she will ride roughshod over any accomplishments that may happen. The war was Bush’s alabtross. Obama has to keep Pelosi from becoming his.
Sovereign voters of San Francisco or not, she’s got to go- so more reasoned fellows can rise up. The bill’s bad start can be directly laid at her feet.
Feel free to forward this column to her house e-mail address. I did. If nothing else you can clog up their spam filters, and that’s good for something.