To make a point related to Paul's from earlier today, let me echo the words of Matthew Yglesias from yesterday: the only politics of the stimulus President Obama and his team should concern themselves with is making sure that the bill does all it can to actually improve the economy. Short-term bi-partisan posturing, whether for political cover or arising from actual beliefs, is utterly insignificant compared the real-world impact of the bill itself (emphasis mine):
To me, this re-enforces the case for making the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, six, seventh, eight, ninth, tenth, and only priority in terms of the stimulus to write the best bill possible and pass it with the minimum number of votes necessary. Stimulus is a great idea in theory, but in practice the results of the congressional process may well get ugly. A bill that works substantively will be good enough politically, and worrying too much about the short-term politics just opens up the door for the bill to get more screwed up. If a giant stimulus passes and the economy stays in a funk, nobody's going to care how many Republicans voted for the bill years in the past.
People don't care how many Democrats and how many Republicans vote for this bill. People don't care how much Obama appeared to be seeking Republican input or not. The only thing they care about is whether this helps turn the economy around. About half of my friends here in Philadelphia have either recently lost their job, or had their hours cut back. Everywhere I go, the ambient conversation is about trouble people are having with their jobs. I have little doubt this is the case everywhere in the country.
As the current governing party, in 2010 and 2012, Democrats will be blamed for continued economic troubles no matter how bi-partisan we appear. Further, there are good reasons to believe that any ideas Republicans put forth won't work. For one thing, their ideas largely got us into this mess, and many of their leaders are now openly stating that they want the Obama administration to fail. They have bad ideas, and often act in bad faith. If you want to fix our problems, it is probably a good idea not to listen to them.
Making sure the bill works is also an over-riding concern for those of us who are excited about the rapid shift toward left-wing political sensibilities in this country. After decades of neoliberal and conservative dominance in Washington, D.C., we have entered a new moment of left-wing possibility. Nationalizing industries has become acceptable. Hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars in new public spending is acceptable. To top it off, we finally have large enough majorities in Congress, along with control of the White House to actually pass such legislation. However, if this moment is squandered by passing a bill that won't work, it could be another thirty or forty years before we have a similar opportunity to re-organize the economy. It doesn't matter if the bill fails because of poor oversight, because of a desire to appear bi-partisan, because it was too small or because it was too big. The stimulus will serve as a public test of left-wing economics no matter how it is constructed, and as such it is politically imperative for lefties that it work.
While this should have been painfully obvious after eight years of the Bush administration, altering legislation to meet short-term political demands erodes your long-term political position by passing legislation that makes people's lives worse. If we pass a crappy bill out of a desire to look bi-partisan, or to not appear left-wing, than our currently dominant political position will quickly evaporate. It is unclear what role the Obama administration is actually giving Republicans in constructing the stimulus. Pelosi, apparently, gave Republicans no role whatsoever. Good. That seems like a sensible approach right now. I hope Obama is doing exactly the same thing, and his "I won" comment from yesterday indicates that might be the case. Then again, the size of the stimulus, the role of tax cuts in the stimulus, and his repeated meetings with Republican leaders on the legislation, gives reasons to worry that political concerns are playing too large a role.
I don't intend this post as either accusatory or laudatory. Rather, as an American concerned that we might be in permanent decline, and as a lefty worried that our newfound opportunity to re-organize the economy will be quickly discredited in the eyes of the public without even having a chance to implement it correctly, I simply want to offer general guidelines on how to not blow this. There is a good chance that none of us will witness another opportunity like this for the rest of our lives. We can either find the road to salvation, or squander it away forever.
As an anti-spam measure, there is a 24-hour waiting period after registering before new users can comment. blog advertising is good for you
blog advertising is good for you
