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Absolutely the Worst Way to Handle the Stimulus Negotiation

By: Francis Cianfrocca (Diary)  |  January 28th, 2009 at 08:46 AM  | 

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News stories are now rampant that Obama is looking to “compromise” on the fiscal stimulus package. He has no need to do any such thing.

Obama has solid Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, and can pass his legislation without so much as a single Republican vote. I can guarantee you that the Republicans won’t filibuster the bill in the Senate. We have a reboot of the automaker bailout coming up next month, or in March at the latest, and we need to keep our powder dry for that.

What Obama is showing, rather, is a sincere desire to be perceived as bipartisan. That after all was one of the key rationales on which he sold his presidency, the other two being Hope (“you’ll get rich if I’m elected”) and Change (“have I mentioned that I’m black?”).

To this end, he’s met with Republican lawmakers on several well-publicized occasions. (This leaves me wondering whether he’s met with Democratic lawmakers at all, and why that doesn’t make news. Dog bites man, I guess.) The most substantive thing that’s come out of Obama’s meetings with the opposition, can be summed up in his pithy phrase, “I won.”

Remember that, for the next four years, when Obama tells you that his initiatives are fully bipartisan and supported by people on all sides of the aisle: “I won.”

Republicans have no need to support a wasteful fiscal stimulus package that plays not only to an orthodox economic theory that’s been disproved by decades of experience, but also to the worst instincts of Democratic populists. American consumers don’t need a fresh coat of paint on their government buildings. They need more savings in their bank accounts. Even if the measured effects on GDP would be smaller in the near term, an extensive and radical tax holiday will do more lasting good for the economy than the stimulus, as currently proposed.

The instinct of lawmakers of both parties is to make law. One gets the impression that any law would be better than nothing.

But let me reiterate: Republicans have no need to support this package. Obama has enough Democratic votes to enact it without needing us. It would be craven and self-defeating for Republicans to accept a few scraps thrown from the table, in the form of minimally-effective tax relief and lip service to small-business support, and then claim that their needs were responded to.

Obama will add a few items intended to appeal to Republicans. But Republicans should not be suckered into playing this game. That would be the worst possible way to handle this negotiation.

It can’t be said that this is a moment which requires bipartisan support. The voters have already changed the composition of Congress enough to make this unnecessary. Republicans can well afford to stand on principle.

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  • Achance

    If they go along, he gets to dress up the pig with “bipartisan.” If they don’t he and the Ds in Congress get to rail about those partisan and mean-spirited Rs who are more interested in looking out for their corporate buddies than in helping the real people with real problems out in the real America and drivel like that. I don’t see many, especially in the Senate, having the courage or the convictions to face the criticism; they’ll leave Rush on the point and even Rush should watch his back.

    I’m starting to think that the only conviction that means anything to most Republican officeholders is the one they’re worried about getting if BHO turns the Public Integrity Section on them, which he very well could. I’ve seen first-hand what an investigation like the Sen. Stevens investigation and trial does to a legislative body. Here in Juneau for the last two sessions, you almost never see a Republican legislator out in the bars and restaurants, few even attend receptions and the like, and everybody holding an elected or appointed office will cross the street to avoid being seen with a lobbyist. Of course, the Democrats still have a lively social life.

    • IJB

      If they don?t [Obama] and the Ds in Congress get to rail about those partisan and mean-spirited Rs who are more interested in looking out for their corporate buddies than in helping the real people with real problems out in the real America and drivel like that.

      The problem with that one for the Dems is that it only works in the short term. (And, actually, Obama won’t make that claim – he’ll let the morons in The Press do it for him.)

      When 2010 rolls around and unemployment is +10%, Republicans will be lauded as heroes for standing up to a bill that only “made things worse”, and Dems will come off like the goats feeding at the public till that they are.

      Frankly, there’s very little downside for taking the second fork, while there’s virtually no upside for GOP’ers who take the first.

      That said, you’re right – the majority of Senate Republicans are likely far too stupid to see what’s in their best political interests. We’ve just got to hope that they see it sooner rather than later.

      • Achance

        and the media. They have America convinced that we’re losing a war that we won, should ramp up a “war” that is nothing more than cross border raids, and that for the last eight years the economy was the worst since the Great Depression. Now they have the ignorant masses convinced that we’re doing The Great Depression Redux.

        The economy will be bad only if BHO says it is bad. Unemployment will be 10% if the BLS is allowed to say it is and you might remember the new Sec. of Labor is handpicked by Andy Stern.

        It will take a lot of shouting from the Republican side to convince “The People” that their failure to support this most needful thing was anything but mean-spiritedness. Now, I happen to think that if you’re going to be hated and denigrated no matter what you do, you should get your money’s worth. The best place for them to shout from is the floor of the House and Senate. But that wouldn’t be collegial, would it?

    • Kyle-MI

      Always sacrifice the weaker position. Republicans gain nothing, absolutely nothing, from going along with Obama and the Democrats. This whole ‘bipartisan’ nonsense buys us nothing and should be sacrificed.

  • streetwise

    * for the analytically challenged of the GOP establishment, this means vote “No”.

    You can throw President Obama a few rhetorical posies on his New Tone.

    • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • Vladimir

    Example: George H.W. Bush & the “read my lips” pledge that was thrown over in spontaneous spasms of bipartisanship.

    They bashed him over the head, even though he gave ground to agree with them.

    Dems channel Otter from Animal House: “Face it. You f****d up. You trusted us.”

    Where was bipartisanship re: confirmation of judges.

    The rookie President says this is the age of responsibility. You have the votes, sir. Take responsibility and lead. All you need the Repubs for is a scapegoat.

    Sad thing is, I bet half the Repubs cave.

  • bk

    1993 – Clinton takes office and with no GOP support implements his middle class tax cut huge income tax increase and 5c gas tax increase. (And HillaryCare is a bust.)

    1994 – We get the Contract and a huge swing in both Houses.

    Hmmm…

    • mikefisk

      Who in the GOP is capable of making 2010 another 1994? If they exist, I haven’t met them.

      • bk

         

    • Achance

      thinking that way, I’m sure. I know my rule in dealing with Lefty unions playing Saul Alinsky games was always to “let them be themselves,” and in being themselves, you could count on their doing something reprehensible that you could smash them for.

      That said, the World is very different from 1994 and the most fundamental difference is that Republicans/Conservatives have NO WAY to be heard by the vast middle of the American res publica. We can only preach to the choir and the choir doesn’t bring in any new members to our church – to stretch the cliche. So, they will do all sorts of reprehensible things that the MSM will tell the ignorant massess are wonderful things and that will make it so. The only national pulpit we have, and even it is at the mercy of the MSM, is our Congressional leadership, which seems to need both a brain and spine transplant.

      A thinking Republican leadership would shorten our lines and concentrate on defending our states and our Congressional seats at the State and local level. We should go on the defensive at the federal level since we simply don’t have the power to go on the offensive.

    • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

      You can’tj ust watch them be bad and pay off. You have to work to earn the victory.

      They’d better *not* be assuming bad policy from them means good results for us.

      • bk

          

        • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

          We haven’t had cohesive party leadership since President Bush decided to give up and stop leading.

  • Skanderbeg

    The conventional explanation (trying to pre-emptively spread the risk of future blame) is the most likely. But there’s another possibility here that we should keep in mind and keep an eye on – since if this is indeed what’s happening it’s a political flaw in Obama’s character that we can really exploit to devastating effect over the next two years.

    Indeed, the conventional explanation makes the most sense – he keeps having the Republican congressmen in for chat to try to get them aboard so that if/when the whole “stimulus” is understood in the country to have been a monster cow pie, at least the blame can be shared (rather than focused on the donks).

    However, there’s another thing worth pondering. It’s possible that Obama is indeed trying to go about this in the way of the “community organizer” that he once was – and which he said was his prime qualification.

    As far as I can tell, “community organizer” is just a nicer-sounding version of what in core-marxism is known as the “facilitator.” To get to “decisions” in marxism, you don’t have meetings for discussions of various viewpoints, followed by a deciding vote. Instead, you get everyone together and have them all reach a unianimous “consensus.” How does that happen? Well, it’s the job of the “facilitator” to guide the group to all move to a “consensus” on the “correct” decision. This makes ex post facto sense because (to quote ho chi minh – literally), “the people have been unified.”

    Watch this one in the next few months. If he really IS going to try to be a “community organizer” (a.k.a. “facilitator) in chief, wow can he and his minions be pounded (deservedly) for it….

    • http://www.the41stvote.org rcov092

      He won as he was so gracious to remind us.

  • Achance

    and called it “interest based bargaining.” They do a weeklong seminar in it a few times a year to throngs of politicians and labor relations/HR types and charge an alarming amount of money for the privilege of hanging their cheap-looking certificate on your office wall. I took it and sent my staff to it as a “know your enemy” course. What it really does is give a Democrat Administration or a feckless private sector management a way to make it look like they’re actually doing something constructive while all they’re really doing is conspiring with the union or other interest group to just get over on a legislature or the voters. And that’s what troubles me in dealing with this stuff on a National scale.

    A good practitioner of interest based bargaining can really, really look good selling this dressed up pig. BHO can now say he has tried a collaborative approach with the Republcans and has attempted to identify their interests and the commonalities of interest that he and the Republicans share and has attempted to address those interests in his stimulus (or whatever) proposal. Unfortunately, the self-interested and unenlighten Republicans remain entrenched in a partican and “postional” bargaining posture and despite his best efforts to address their interests, they just can’t be made to accept an enlightened position that addresses everyone’s interests, not just those of a narrow constituency. Run-on sentence notwithstanding, that sort of pablum sounds real good to people who don’t know any better.

    Us unenlightened old positional types can hand one of these hopey-changey types their head if we’re allowed to do it with malice aforethought and to make smoke and noise and hurt people. I don’t see much willingness or ability to confront this stuff and I really don’t see many of our Republican “leaders” who seem to even know what they’re watching.

    • Achance
      • Skanderbeg

        That was my guess…. :-)

        Anyway, politically, let them have this one if they want – if they lack the courage to risk taking blame for failure, let THEM tie themselves in knots.

        One of my Estonian colleagues once told me that “Russians lose their wits when they get wealth and vice-versa.” Seems that dems are the same way.

        But it’s intriguing that O might actually “mean it” with what he’s trying to do – play “facilitator” who gets everyone to “agree” to his position before moving forward. If that’s the case, he’s an even softer target than we thought….

        • Achance

          he really wants or expects agreement. That certainly isn’t the union/community organizer/facilitator playbook. For them, it is all about extablishing a process and an appearance. If you follow the Hahvud playbook, the process is incredibly cynical and manipulative and just assumes that the citizenry and most of the political class are either dolts or useful idiots. Can’t tell you how much I enjoyed the class! I can’t imagine why anyone would live in Boston, what a hole!

    • http://beaglescout.wordpress.com LJ “Beaglescout” Miller

      you wrote, “Us unenlightened old positional types can hand one of these hopey-changey types their head if we?re allowed to do it with malice aforethought and to make smoke and noise and hurt people.”

      How does that work?

      • Achance

        would be the first tool. Make it graphically evident that they are either stifling debate or disingenuous. You let them take their bipartisan, interest based position and then demonstrate that they have no interest in your interests. It’s just parry and thrust, stroke and counter stroke, but you have to have mapped out what you expect them to do, have a plan bought off on by your political principals so they don’t get weak-kneed about it, and then be able to adapt and improvise in a manner that is consistent with the objectives of the plan. That last is where you often get in trouble; when the stuff hits the fan and the politicians are quivering looking for anything that will “make it stop,” you have to adapt and even compromise, but that adaptation or compromise must be consistent with the objective. If you can’t find that, you just stick to the plan and see what happens next. That’s a start, but I ain’t giving away thirty years worth of doing this stuff.

        • http://beaglescout.wordpress.com LJ “Beaglescout” Miller

          that’s all

  • jhayes

    >>>>The most substantive thing that?s come out of Obama?s meetings with the opposition, can be summed up in his pithy phrase, ?I won.?

    I have to wonder what the reaction would be, if instead of “I won”, he said:

    ” There’s a new decider in town…and he’s not a Republican” ;)

    • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
      • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane
  • izoneguy

    Republican criticism of the stimulus package that the House will vote on tonight has focused on its soaring price tag, but some Democrats on Capitol Hill and other administration supporters are voicing a separate critique: that the plan may fall short in its broader goal of transforming the American economy over the long term.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/27/AR2009012703655.html

    • $peciallist

      This whole thing needs to be SMACKED DOWN…..

      We are losing faith in All of you….

      Hell has no fury …like ‘we the people’ scorned…

  • LawSchoolRed

    I agree that there is no need for any conservative to vote for this if given the chance, but anyone up for re-relection (i.e. everyone in the House and everyone up in 2010 in the Senate) has a pretty significant reason to vote for it.

    If it passes, which it will, and an R votes against it, if it succeeds, he will have ads run against him about voting agianst the “stimulus.” Even if it passes and it doesnt succeed, they can pull individual things out of the bill and say he voted against it ie. Congressman X voted against expanding unemployment benefits. These ads can be made for a myriad of things given the amount of crap that is in the bill. On the other hand, if the R votes for it and its unsuccessful, no Dem is going to be running ads against him really with respect to that vote. He voted with the Dem president, who asked for it.

    Its a no lose situation for him if he votes for it, while there is plenty to lose if he votes against it. This is why principles must matter in who we elect. No conservative would vote for this, but a self agrandizing politician who holds his political future more dearly than conservative principles, surely has a reason to vote for this.

    • itrytobenice

      The conservatives I know, and many middler/moderates, are apoplectic over this Porkapalooza. *Anyone* who votes for this is in trouble. Except those with a lifetime appointment (think Teddy) of course.

    • bs
    • Vegas_Rick

      Fat chance! This may have been the safest no vote the Republicans will get.