There was never any doubt that the House would pass whatever stimulus package President Obama and the Dems put forth. Republicans simply did not have enough votes to block it. And so it finally happened–yesterday the House stamped a $819 billion, 647-page opus of stimulus joy. But I’ll save you the suspense–the six-and-a-half inch stack of ink-laden paper is not a very stimulating read.
The Post Partisan
The news going into this was that, despite Obama’s mandate and despite a Democratic-controlled Congress, Republicans had somehow managed to maintain quasi-relevancy, slipping into the package a slew of tax cuts, much to the chagrin of, uh, everyone else with a pulse.
But in the end, not a single House Republican voted for the plan. In essence, GOP House members demanded that the package be adulterated with tax cuts that every respectable economist maintains will not advance the economic ball a single centimeter (in large part because most Americans are far more likely to wad the cash up and hide it under their Posturpedic, than spend it), but then refused to vote for it even after Dems made significant concessions.
It’s dirty pool that puts politics first: Repubs have positioned themselves to argue "I told you so" if the stimulus fails. And, like their ally Rush Limbaugh, they are probably hoping it does fail.
Columnists like David Sirota suggest that Obama and the Dems should not have dignified the conservative minority at all, for the simple reason that they didn’t have to. They didn’t need the votes. Sirota would have Obama thrash into Washington like Bill (and Hill) Clinton did in 1993, steamrolling over any dissenters. But look what ultimately happened to Bill Clinton. He generated a lot of resentment during those first years, paving the way for the Repubs to stage a major uprising, resulting in the ascension of Newt Gingrich, then the Contract with America and, ultimately, George W. Bush.
What Sirota fails to realize is that the stimulus has implications far beyond the substance of its complex provisions. It’s about setting a tone in Washington and setting the stage for a number of other pieces of legislation, like financial regulatory measures and the Employee Free Choice Act, that have the potential to be far more divisive. Sure, House Repubs pulled a fast one on the Dems here. But in the final analysis they lost and, in so doing, looked more like harrying house flies than laudable leaders.
The Post Partisan