Stimulus Fight: Obama vs. House Democrats
Dan Gerstein says the real stimulus story the press is not covering is that of Obama opposing House Democrats’ pet projects:
For the last few weeks, the president has strenuously avoided getting dragged into this quite legitimate and ultimately losing policy squabble. He did not seek these legislative Christmas tree ornaments, and it seems clear he does not want to expend any political capital to defend or preserve them.
The real test will be…convincing the House Democrats they need to sacrifice some of the pet programs that are hard to justify as part of an emergency rescue plan. Then we’ll see just how strong Obama’s mandate for change really is.
I think he might be right. But if the Senate rescues Obama’s rescue plan with bigger concessions for Republicans then it’s all business as usual in DC. Lots of money spent in bigger government programs, with big tax cuts to boot.
I say keep the tax cuts and ditch the rest.
