Is Obama About To Be Mowed Down By GOP Over Stimulus?

With monolithic one-party control of government comes tremendous political risk. The growing potential for an epic defeat for Obama's economic stimulus plan highlights those risks. With John McCain having just stated his opposition to Obama's plan in its current form, January 25, 2009, will go down as the day any hopes for a "bipartisan economic stimulus package" passing Congress died. After all the work to compose a stimulus package that Obama naively believed many Republicans would find acceptable and sign on for, it's looking increasingly likely that Obama's 2009 economic stimulus package will get just as much Republican support as Bill Clinton's 1993 economic stimulus package. In other words, none at all.

There is no good reason politically for Republicans to attach themselves to this package and plenty of reasons for them to oppose it. Even if the stimulus works, there will be few signs of it at any point in the near future as most of the spending and jobs programs will take several months to kick in. Furthermore, if stimulus works and restores our economic footing, the massive borrowing needed to finance the stimulus will then trigger a brand-new economic crisis in the form of gargantuan public debt and massive inflation. Whatever happens, Congress and the White House will find themselves taking blame for continued financial despair, which is likely to linger for years to come, and Republicans positioned to point their finger at those who created the mess.

So what's the Republicans' best move? Basically the move it appears that they're poised to make. They've already baited the Obama administration into larding up the stimulus package with $300-400 billion worth of mindless tax cuts as a means of shoring up Republican support. As a result, they'll get a stimulus package more to their liking than the ones Democrats would have preferred, yet still get to vote against it as a cynical political tactic of kicking the new administration in the shin. Bottom line: Democrats will be forced to vote on a tax-cut heavy stimulus package that they know won't work with zero Republican support as a means of helping the new President avoid a calamitous embarrassment.

Welcome to Washington, Mr. President. Perhaps Obama and Democratic Congressional leaders can still salvage this stimulus package from becoming a political neutron bomb, but at least for now, it looks like it's becoming a bigger clusterfuck with each passing hour.