Saturday, January 31, 2009

Why Is Obama Making Such a Mistake on the Stimulus?

I think we are seeing the problem of Obama's inexperience big time. The fact that he did not serve one complete term in the Senate and that for a significant part of that term he was running for President shows he is not even bringing in legislative smarts in the process.

I have read in now too many places that Republicans are amazed that Obama is letting the Dems in Congress just control things. That is if Obama had intervened and got Republicans on this he would have much more than just a win on a upcoming vote.

Ross Douthat points out just some practical concerns of a political nature at Deficits Don't Matter?

The Anchoress had a good post at Telling it straight: Must reads - UPDATED where among other people she quotes Peggy Noonan that might now be coming back to reality.

President Obama could have made big history here. Instead he just got a win. It’s a missed opportunity…the president made a mistake by not forcing the creation of a bill Republicans could or should have supported.

All that was needed was a sober, seriously focused piece of legislation that honestly tried to meet the need, one that everyone could tinker with a little and claim as their own. Instead, as Rep. Mike Pence is reported to have said to the president, “Know that we’re praying for you. . . . But know that there has been no negotiation [with Republicans] on the bill—we had absolutely no say.” The final bill was privately agreed by most and publicly conceded by many to be a big, messy, largely off-point and philosophically chaotic piece of legislation

2 comments:

Paul Bernacchio said...

It has been my contention that Obama was elected to POTUS precisely because of racism. MLK worked and desired a colorless society, that recognized the dignity and worth of all peoples. Obama was elected because the media, who wanted to "make history" by electing a black man, totally ignored his a) lack of experience, b) his associates who were socialists, terrorists, anti-white pastors who preached hatred and ex-Clintonistas. In this first couple of weeks he has managed to sign a phony presidential order "closing" Gitmo even though he has no clue what he is going to do with the prisoners, send tax payer dollars so people around the globe can have abortions on us, get on Arab television and tell the world that we Americans dictate and don't listen, propose a stimulus package that has pork for every wacko liberal group including $355 million for the prevention of stds (sexually transmitted diseases) and now he declares that "recovery will take years not months" instilling great confidence in the American people. The market has great confidence in him too its down 17% since he was declare the winner. This is what happens when when you vote using race as the primary and sole criteria. He is right about one thing. It's gonna get worse before it gets better.

James H said...

I think you are on to something.

I also think that in 2 years a good many Republcians are going to be lected because they will see the widsdom that there needs to be a counterbalance to at least slow things down. I get the impression that the Democrats are just going to bulldoze everthing through and that is dangerous.