Statesmanship, Failure of….
President Obama’s biggest political headaches in the next four years will come not from Republicans or Rush Limbaugh but the cosmically egocentric and ideologically blinded Boomer Watergate Baby cadre in the House Democrats.
A global economic crisis and they seized an opportunity to pass an incoherent host of nickel and dime appropriations on their leftwing wish list along with huge giveaways to special interests that rival anything constructed by Bush-Paulson. They have managed to make an $ 800 billion dollar stimulus bill “non-stimulating”. That takes some doing to waste three quarters of a trillion dollars without anticipating any economic growth, even as spillover benefits, at a time of rising unemployment.
Is everything in this mega-bill bad ? No. Is it reasonable to expect Democrats not to pass some of their agenda items along the way ? No. What we have though is a bill apparently so embarrassing that Speaker Pelosi, who seems to be acting more and more like she is the uncrowned co-president, doesn’t even want her own members to have time to read it, much less Republicans or the general public. It is all dessert and no vegetables and it was the Democrats very first order of business.
The aging Watergate Babies, the Left-wing of the Left-wing of the Democratic Party, now in the drivers seat in the House of Representatives once “rolled” Jimmy Carter and helped destroy his presidency. They did the same to Bill Clinton in his first two years in office. They will hijack Obama’s administration agenda as well, or try to do so.
Given that the result of the first instance was the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and that of the second was Newt Gingrich’s 1994 takeover, 2010 is suddenly looking a lot brighter for conservatives if they can manage to get their act together. Their opponents are gearing up for the overrerach of a lifetime.
February 13th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
You might want to check Nancy Pelosi’s age. She’s not a Baby Boomer.
Speaking as an out-of-step member of that generation while I think that we deserve a lot of flak we get some undeserved blame, too.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Can’t say I really agree with that assessment. For one thing, George H.W. was not as disliked as his son, so less nostalgia. For another thing, so far the Republicans seem to be taking heat for working against the stimulus, not vice versa. And I’m wondering if it’s Nancy Pelosi or the sheer size of the bill that’s preventing Congressfolks from reading it. Heck, even I wouldn’t read it, and I’ve read bigger books than that in matters of hours. On that, can’t say I particularly blame them. Congresspeople on both sides have better things to do, like violate OPSEC.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Hi Dave,
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No she’s not, but many of the very liberal "Class of 1974", are.
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Hi Patton,
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I’m confused by your ref to Bush, sr.
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GOP may get heat for working against a stimulus bill in the short term. In the longer term when it becomes apparent it is not a stimulus bill at all, that will play very well with the sort of "swing" voter who once voted for Perot.
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It’s Nancy Pelosi, she ultimately schedules the time for the vote. The rush was to prevent the bill from being read and understood. All that money and not even investments in any kind of strategic change. The Democrats blew it here.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
This is really something I can’t figure out. Paul Krugman has said that WWII was the greatest stimulus package of all times. Why hasn’t the Iraqi war stimulated our economy? Did we just not spend enough money? Did we fight the wrong people? Did we loose? What happened? If it didn’t stimulate our economy, how is this stimulus really supposed to work?
What is your take on this? Do you think the stimulus package is actually going to work if the Iraq and Afgan war couldn’t? In your gut, what does history tell you about all of this? Is it Egypt, Great Brittan, and France all over again or did the replublicans actually let multi-national corporations loot our national treasury over Iraq for the last 8 years in the name of, as you would say, homesteading?
February 13th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Not one of the Watergate Babies currently serving in Congress is a Baby Boomer. The Congressional leadership is overwhelmingly non-Baby Boomer.
February 13th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
yeah, it was the southern Blue Dogs that scuttled Clinton’s healtcare proposal (along with the GOP following Kristol’s advice of oppose anything that could be an accomplishment)
February 13th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
The bill is "non-stimulating" by the standards of that "investment analyst who’s usually quite optimistic". From that dude’s comments it’s clear that his definition of "stimulus" would be reinflate the housing bubble, or find a different bubble to inflate (let’s have everyone buy more houses to keep prices afloat unsustainably!). Instead it looks like Obama wanted to find some way of getting a lot of money into the economy fast but at the same time lay the foundations for long term equitable economic growth. Those 3 goals (size, speed, outcome) aren’t really compatible so they ended up needing to spend money on things and with a really big messy bill – probably unavoidable given the size and speed. Also that article says nothing about the bill’s effect on employment. Maybe a better source rather than some random investment analyst would be the CBO, their analysis is here:"By CBO’s estimation, in the short run the stimulus legislation would raise GDP and increase employment by adding to aggregate demand and thereby boosting the utilization of labor and capital that would otherwise be unused because the economy is in recession. Most of the budgetary effects of the legislation would occur over the next few years, and as those effects diminished the short-run impact on the economy would fade….In contrast to its positive near-term macroeconomic effects, the legislation would reduce output slightly in the long run…"http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9987/Gregg_Year-by-Year_Stimulus.pdfElections in 2010 and 2012 will probably be determined by the economy, sure. Rather than "will Dems overreach trying to create Left-Wing-Utopia-USA", you could also frame the question like this: "Did George Bush screw up so bad that the economy is unfixable in a 2/4 year window, thus giving the GOP back Congress/the White House?" That would be true irony.
February 13th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Argh, my paragraphs got all messed up.
February 14th, 2009 at 2:41 am
It is not about to this being so much a generational thing. The main point you were making is a failure of statesmanship. I would characterize this also as a failure of leadership, where a virgin President Obama, just had his first trip to Madam Pelosi’s parlor, and failed the test.
If you look below at Lincoln’s face, his eyes are rolling.
February 14th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 2/14/2009, at <a href="http://unreligiousright.blogspot.com/">The Unreligious Right</a>
February 15th, 2009 at 6:06 am
Hi Adrian,
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The bill is a plate of leftwing spaghetti thrown against a wall.
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Here’s the London Times on it " welfare spendathon".
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The Economist writes that Obama "ceded control to Congressional Democrats…" which was exactly my point. He will regret that move – having done so with his flagship initiative, the House leadership will expect Obama’s substantive deference on all issues down the line.