During the designing of the stimulus bill Barack Obama's team bet against itself: they threw in a bunch of stuff, mostly huge tax cuts, in anticipation of Republican objection to their spending plan: "Look how bipartisan we are, we're giving you stuff before you even ask for it."
When every single Republican in the House voted against the bill the White House seemed to realize their mistake. Sure, Rahm Emanuel talked about what was necessary to get a bill passed but it was pretty clear a different approach would have yielded the same number of Senate Republican votes and a better bill. Now, with the budget bill the Obama administration has proposed, it seems they have learned a lesson. Even moderates are unhappy. Here's Andrew Sullivan, heretofore an Obama cheerleader:
If you believe, as I do, that withdrawing from Iraq won't happen as promised, then there is close to no actual spending restraint anywhere in sight. We are being presented with what can only be described as a massive increase in government spending and power with the only fiscal balance being wringing much more money from the successful. The president predicted a tight budget and spending control in his non-SOTU, and he appealed to fiscal conservatives by promising a long-term attack on entitlement spending. I see nothing here yet that fulfills that promise.
It is, indeed, a big bill. There will be a lot of squawking and the final bill will almost certainly be smaller. But I think a lesson has been learned: make them fight you for every little concession before you give anything away for free.
