Obama Knows What You Need, Even If He Won't Tell You: "Now is the Time [for Bipartisan Horse-Trading] (The Op-Ed)

by Teh Nutroots | Or so he says here. Ha ha ha, the president himself administers a rebuke to his opponents:

What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis....

That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come....

Americans [are]...patient enough to know that our economic recovery will be measured in years, not months. But they have no patience for the same old partisan gridlock that stands in the way of action while our economy continues to slide.  (WaPo)

Echidne says (heh):

I like the way it ends with "The writer is the president of the United States. Bully pulpit...

And...so, according to the writer (the president of the United States) it comes down to this:

So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time. (WaPo)

In between, he has a go at "misguided criticisms."  I mostly agree with him insofar as there is no reason to believe the GOP, after having got it wrong at least since the days of the "Contract with America," will suddenly prove to be right:

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.(WaPo)

Of course, I am among the critics who think his plan possibly may not be aggressive enough and that it might already be GOP'd up too much to work.

Obama claims that he likes his plan.

This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.(WaPo)

Republicans, who would rather go on doing things their way or who simply don't understand how critical this crisis really is, are fighting to put their own stamp on it. The Senate added a homebuyer tax credit much favored by Republicans.

The tax break for homebuyers, which the Senate approved by voice vote without opposition, was the second amendment in two days intended to encourage consumers to make major purchases. On Tuesday, the Senate approved a tax incentive for car buyers, sponsored by Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, that would allow the deduction of sales tax and loan interest on purchases made this year.(NYT)

At least one economist -- Adam Posen, [deputy director of the Peterson Institute of International Economics] has called these "terrible, pandering ideas."...

“They are...unsound...reinforcing the attempts of industries that are too large — housing construction, automobile production — to survive based on government distortions.”(NYT)

Which is what I, speaking from my position as an ignorant layman, would have assumed.

Roy Edroso at The Village Voice:

Republicans have been vacillating between "block that kick" and, in the immortal words of Van Halen, "everybody wants some, I want some too." ...

Republican leader Mitch McConnell (pictured) praised the amendment and spoke optimistically about settling differences in the coming days, though he continues to insist on cutting its overall size and, as a Republican politician must, using odd-sounding provisions as examples of its wastefulness...

Such as what?  I hear you ask:

Initiatives that critics hope to remove from the bill include $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $14 million for cyber security research by the Homeland Security Department, $1 billion for the National Science Foundation, $400 million for research and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, $850 million for Amtrak and $400 million for climate change research.(NYT)

Let's just hope this time the left hand can keep the right from buggering up everything so as to ensure failure.

Echidne again:

I haven't written about the most recent quarrels over what constitutes job-creation and what the stimulus package should contain, because what I think matters most right now is for the government to step in to increase aggregate demand in the economy. Consumers are not going to spend much money at this time, but the less we spend the more jobs we will lose, due to the lack of customers or clients. Hence the need for government spending.

Some supporters are worrying that Obama is --- in the words of the Politico --- "losing the stimulus message war."   Joan Walsh says at Salon:

I'm concerned about how Obama is and isn't selling his crucial stimulus/recovery bill. I'm wondering about what he'd say about it in an FDR-style "fireside chat." On YouTube, or wherever. Even though I'm an Obama admirer, and also, I'm paid to know these things, I'm not sure I do know how he'd make the case for why this bill will solve our economy's problems, and why it must pass.

And soon, because new poll numbers now show that public support for it is already dropping fast. A Rasmussen poll says 43 percent oppose it, and 37 support it, an 8-point slide in two weeks. Nate Silver thinks that poll overstates the bill's troubles. "There is some evidence -- the trendline in the Rasmussen poll -- that he stimulus has become less popular. There is no evidence, on the other hand, that the stimulus has become unpopular; on the contrary, the preponderance of polling evidence suggests it remains a course of action that most of the public likes." Still, the Washington Post reported today that Senate Democrats don't think they have the votes to pass it right now.

So that's one concern.  Others, and I am one of those, are more worried about not knowing what Obama's message even is. At Open Left, Chris Bowers notes glumly:

The stimulus bill has suffered a major setback. Lacking the 60 votes to pass the bill, Senate Democrats have moved to a conference off-site, delayed the vote, and seem to have ceded negotiations on the plan to a gang of twenty or so center-right Senators who aim to cut $200 billion or so of spending from the plan. (The current size is $825-890 billion, spending on if you are talking about the House or Senate versions. Both have about $550 billion in spending).

In the midst of all this, Jim Cooper is bragging that the Obama administration encouraged him about his opposition to the current size of the stimulus, Obama's new cabinet appointee Judd Gregg recuses himself from voting on the stimulus, and President Obama still has not encouraged his most ardent supporters to take action on the current stimulus plan.

If President Obama is now negotiating with Ben Nelson and Susan Collins to trim the stimulus plan, if he didn't encourage his most dedicated activists to show their support for the current version of the stimulus, if he is allowing cabinet appointees to not support the current version of the stimulus, if Jim Cooper is being encouraged in his opposition to the stimulus, and if we remember that President Obama indicated he had "no pride of authorship" on the stimulus, isn't it reasonable to conclude that President Obama himself wants to reduce the size of the stimulus package?

As Bowers notes:

Whatever merits there are to bi-partisanship, citizen participation in the legislative process is not one of them. While individual Senators re-negotiate critical pieces of legislation in backroom meetings, the grassroots are left out in the cold with no clear action to take. It isn't clear what, or who, Obama's most dedicated activists should be supporting right now. Does he want a larger stimulus bill? A smaller one? Which members of Congress do we need to lobby? Are Republicans the problem? Are Democrats? No one knows, and there are a lot of mixed signals.

Which is why I'm going to leave it there for now.

Memeorandum has more.

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Comments

[Flowerplough]

Obama knows what I need. He says I'm bitter, and that I cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like me or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain my frustrations. He chuckles that I've been beaten down so long, and that I feel so betrayed by government, that when I hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of me just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (crowd laughter here), he says that just adds another layer to my skepticism.

And he may be right. When I hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of me just doesn’t buy it. And when I see Mr. No-Lobbyists nominating a tax-cheat lobbyist like Daschle to his cabinet, my cynicism and skepticism are indeed greatly reinforced.