House Stimulus Vote Today

Why is Obama so eager to share the credit of saving the U.S. economy with congressional Republicans?

Is he really just that nice of a guy? Or should we heed the words of Admiral Akbar:



It's a Trap!

AP News

Still, Shapiro, now an official with NDN, a think tank formerly known as the New Democratic Network, said it's more important not to let the debate over the stimulus package "degenerate into politics as usual. If the country believes this has turned into a package of special-interest spending and tax provisions, then the efforts to restore confidence will be damaged."

Consider this from Obama's perspective. If the economy gets better he gets all the credit -- and, even better, he did it by dragging along recalcitrant Republicans, who eventually voted along with him, the great unifier.

If the economy gets worse, he sure would like to say, "hey, we were all in this together."

From the Republican perspective this is a no-brainer. If the economy gets better, the electorate quits worrying about the economy and votes on Republican-friendly social values and defense issues. If the economy gets worse, well Obama just handed them a nice big club with a failed stimulus bill. That is if they didn't vote for it.

In other words, there is really nothing in this for the GOP. They can't even be labeled obstructionists. And in the case that they don't need crass cynical politics to vote against it there are very real reasons, as illustrated by the WSJ:

So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The 647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being sold as an economic "stimulus," but now that Democrats have finally released the details we understand Rahm's point much better. This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.
[Review & Outlook] AP

We've looked it over, and even we can't quite believe it. There's $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There's even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

So this should not be surprising.

The Corner on National Review Online

Just talked to a very clued-in Republican on the Hill. This person wouldn't predict a unanimous Republican vote against the Democratic stimulus package, but said there would be "minimal" GOP support of the bill. "I don't know if it will be unanimous, but Democrats are not going to have the kind of bipartisan support the president was trying to get," he told me. An "overwhelming" number of Republicans will vote no, he predicted.

In fact the issue might be whether Obama can get the blue dogs on board, much less the GOP.

The Tennessean

After years of preaching fiscal responsibility, middle Tennessee Democratic House members were struggling Tuesday with how to vote on an $825 billion economic stimulus plan.

Reps. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, and John Tanner, D-Union City, both members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog coalition of Democrats, said they had not decided how they will vote Wednesday on the House proposal.

In fact it's a little surprising to me how fast the Democrats appear to be moving on this bill considering that once this is passed, Obama and the Democrats will have full ownership of the economy no matter which direction it turns.

No wonder they're so eager to share the credit.