With stimulus bill, patience is paramount
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi accomplished two things when she announced there would be no mid-February congressional recess unless the giant economic stimulus bill was on its way to the White House.
On the positive side, she clearly signaled to Republicans that delay tactics could cost them vacations and campaign time. But conversely, her hard line was a tacit green light for fellow Democrats to ram the staggeringly expensive piece of legislation through, regardless of GOP objections. The $819 billion tax and spending bill passed the House with nary a single Republican vote. The first important roll call of the Obama presidency looked as bitterly partisan as any of the Bush years, but not for lack of effort from the new president. Obama visited Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers, and even encouraged the Democratic draftsmen to scrap a couple of egregiously irrelevant spending programs. The complaint I heard from Republicans was that Pelosi and her lieutenants, committee chairmen Charlie Rangel and David Obey, had used the tight timetable and legislative procedures to block virtually all compromise. There are compelling reasons, both substantive and political, to hope Senate consideration is more open, even if it takes more time than Obama prefers.
This massive bill is almost certain to be the biggest if not the last weapon the government employs to halt the country's sickening economic slide the past five months. With so much uncertainty, it's worth taking time to try to get it right. Professional economists have raised questions that are not frivolous about its design. Martin Feldstein, a top Reagan adviser, has questioned the efficacy of the proposed tax cuts and spending proposals to generate consumer demand and produce jobs. Alice Rivlin, who played a similar role for Bill Clinton, has called for a sharper focus on short-term job growth vs. slow-acting steps for energy independence or health care quality. The Congressional Budget Office has challenged how quickly the massive financial infusion will be felt in family budgets and the marketplace.
Beyond these policy challenges, there are political considerations that make it vital for Obama to negotiate for more than token Republican Senate support. Nothing was more central to his victory last fall than his claim that he could break the partisan gridlock in Washington. He wants to be like Ronald Reagan who steered his first economic measures through a Democratic House in 1981, not Bill Clinton, passing his first budget in 1993 without a single Republican vote. The first way leads to long-term success; the second foretells early loss of control. Either way, this vote will set a pattern. Obama needs a bipartisan majority because, tough as this issue is, harder ones await when he turns to energy, health care and entitlement reform.
The good news is that Obama can find such support in the Senate, if his allies allow key Republicans to have a real voice in reshaping it. Then House Republicans who wanted to initially vote yes can when the bill returns. What Obama can't allow is for Majority Leader Harry Reid to become impatient and force a showdown or pull the bill off the floor, as Reid did with immigration reform in the last Congress. So much is riding on this - both substantively and politically - it's worth taking the time to do it right.
© 2009, Washington Post Writers Group