Just days after taking office vowing to end the political era of “petty grievances,” President Obama ran into mounting GOP opposition yesterday to an economic stimulus plan that he had hoped would receive broad bipartisan support.
Republicans accused Democrats of abandoning the new president’s pledge, ignoring his call for bipartisan comity and shutting them out of the process by writing the $850 billion legislation. The first drafts of the plan would result in more spending on favored Democratic agenda items, such as federal funding of the arts, they said, but would do little to stimulate the ailing economy.
The GOP’s shrunken numbers, particularly in the Senate, will make it difficult for Republicans to stop the stimulus bill, but the growing GOP doubts mean that Obama’s first major initiative could be passed on a largely party-line vote — little different from the past 16 years of partisan sniping in the Clinton and Bush eras.
“Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters yesterday, saying Republicans were not being realistic in their expectations.
Hoping to recapture the bipartisan spirit, Obama will host nine congressional leaders at the White House today for talks about the economic recovery package, which he has asked to be on his desk by Feb. 16, Presidents’ Day. He also agreed to talk with House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) and other GOP lawmakers next week about their proposals for more tax cuts.
Republicans have a long list of grievances.
Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), who gave Vice President Biden a 17-page list of spending requests, said he opposes the proposed increase in funding for Pell Grants for college students because it would do little to spur short-term economic growth. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) said the plan lacks enough “fast-acting tax relief,” such as a temporary halt to payroll taxes and more relief for businesses. Sen. John Thune (S.D.) said the nearly $1 trillion price tag would add too much to a federal deficit that is already predicted to top $1.2 trillion for 2009.
“The Republican concerns about what’s moving in the House are growing by the day,” Thune said. He dismissed as “very, very ambitious” Obama’s hope of securing a bipartisan majority of 80 votes for the stimulus plan in the Senate, which could consider its version of the legislation next weekend.
Yes, Nancy, you won the election – and we GOPers should not sign off on a plan which looks to be a slow-moving economic disaster. We can’t do much to actually stop the legislation from going forward…but there’s no need for GOPers to provide a patina of bi-partisanship to a bill which is relentlessly partisan as well as horribly flawed.
Before we GOPers sign on to this, we must insist upon at least some free-market, supply side provisions be inserted into the bill…even if its just making President Bush’s tax cuts permanent. That would at least allow businesses to engage in long-term planning and might help turn the economy around by the middle of 2011. All the current bill does is spend bags of money to no actual purpose – and if such a bill is passed, then whent it all comes crashing down, we want “Democrat” written all over it.
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