Obama: Paring Back the Christmas Tree

"Republican criticism, ridicule and demagoguery: $200 million to spiff up the National Mall."
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KT-I guess the republican's think a tax cut and less government will spiff up the mall much better.

Comment in moderation? All I did was link to the Wall Street Journal.

The GOP is hated and distrusted by Americans, has chased everyone under 30 out of their ranks, and has zero interest in sound policy. Why is "intra-party harmony" a worthwhile goal?

"Christmas tree"?
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is that a phrase that is showing up in GOP emails and press releases, or have you decided on your own to use that derogatory term?
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I mean, its typical of Villagers, with their six figure incomes, to criticize programs that will create jobs for the poor/disadvantaged citizens of DC from the comfort of their Georgetown (or suburban) domiciles, ain't it....

Yeah thats the same Forbes magazine that named Andrew Sullivan,Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd "influential liberals" last week. Notice how they describe the provisions of the House bill as "pet projects". Give me a phucking break. If I find that video of Congressman Miller last night I will link it here because he told the truth in no uncertain terms. We have given tax cuts for the rich a chance over the last 8 years and thats part of why our economy is in the sh!tter right now. Now it's time to do a stimulus that focuses on stuff that actually works. Personally I hope the House Democratic leadership dump even more infrastructure spending in and raise the bill up to 900 billion just to blow their frikkin minds.

Elvis-I keep wondering if those us sitting in the cheap seats are really not giving this enough time to play out. Kind of lets see where Obama is going kind of thing and how he adjusts his game plan.

Karen, I know that the term "christmas tree" has been around forever --- the question is why did you choose to use the term when referring to provisions of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will provide services (family planning) and jobs (National Mall) for poor people?
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What makes those provisions so "extraneous"? The fact that the GOP criticizes them? The fact that upper-middle class white professionals like yourself get no benefit from them?

The ballsiness of the Republicans is impressive. They sound like Obama has to put their plan in effect, instead of recognizing that they're getting more attention from Obama than they did from Bush.
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As Jeanne Cummings pointed out yesterday, if you work for a landscape company you'd like jobs too.

I think KT is right.
Part of the message Obama wants to send is the fact that this bill is URGENT because we're dealing with a CRISIS.
If he can be seen as making smooth passage a higher priority than any particular spending provision, then he'll end up in a much better position overall when the smoke clears than he would if the 'emergency' bill takes two months to get out of conference.

whether they belong in an economic stimulus bill
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its called the "Recovery and Reinvestment" program for a reason -- its not about 'stimulating' the economy so much as its about recovering from the impact of GOP misrule, and jump-starting infrastructure projects. As long as you keep referring to it as a "stimulus", rather than acknowledging that "stimulus" is what the Village wants (gotta regain the ground lost in their 401ks and Roth IRAs!) but not what the economy needs right now, you continue to frame the issue in a way most advantageous to the GOP and your peers.
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and BTW, you don't think that family planning funding creates jobs? You don't think that a "shovel ready" program like the National Mall project will create jobs?

Well lets see, the family planning provision was expected to save states ove 400 million over 10 years which presumably would allow them to reallocate that money in their budgets. Sounds stimulative to me.

The resodding of the National Mall would be shovel ready, provide jobs, and would have to be done anyway. Again sounds stimulative to me.

The interesting thing is how unstimulative tax cuts for businesses may be. Exactly what is going to make these business owners hire more people just because they get a tax break? Whats to stop them from just pocketing the difference? Hmmmm inquiring minds want to know.

"Also, don't I recall that commenters here complained about Bush's "my way or the highway" approach to governing?"
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Yes there were and I was one of them. I know this can turn out to be a major tone setting event, but Obama also said during his campaign that this was not going to be easy. The GOP is very, almost too good as an opposition party and to think that Obama is going to get them to surrender after 2 weeks, one bill and a couple dozen pictures is unrealistic in my opinion.

K T
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I just love your false equivalence but can you name a time over the last 8 years when the Democrats took an ideological stance on any issue and opposed a bill that Bush and the Republicans rammed through?
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You should remember something, the only times Bush said my way or the highway was when both Dems AND Rethugs were against him. Any other times Dems happily capitulated "for the good of the country".

KT, why did my comments (one was a second try) go into moderation?

pluk: it's not that spiffing up the mall (or giving more money to the NEA) lacks merit. the question--a legitimate one, i think--is whether this belongs in an urgent economic stimulus package that obama would like to pass with bipartisan support. i think the president is right on this one
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but somehow, giving tax breaks to fat cats who have been taking advantage of off-shore tax haves and want to repatriate their money "belongs in an urgent economic stimulus package?" Seriously? Do you REALLY THINK that will create jobs? It won't. What it will do is increase stock prices -- which is great for Villager retirement accounts and other investments, but won't do squat in terms of helping the economy.

Obama is obviously trying (1) to set tone and public perception of the administration's governing ideology and (2) to make the Republicans risk a PR disaster in looking like knee-jerk nay-sayers.
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But there's a problem in all of this: what if Boehner and Cantor don't back down? What if they go down swinging on the House vote and in conference. Maybe they'll look like the bad guys, but they'll also deflate Obama's argument that he could have ever accomplished otherwise.

Spit on his face, is all Obama has for playing kissy face with the Right at this point, and the further alienation of the people who put him in power. However, I'm sure this will be portrayed in the media as a failure of the Left.

KT: "Also, don't I recall that commenters here complained about Bush's "my way or the highway" approach to governing?"
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Sure, because everything he did lacked empirical founding, and almost all of it polled poorly. Whereas Obama's trying to get through a stimulus package that economists who have been right about anything in the last 5 years think we urgently need, and that most Americans support (including the contraception spending).
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The GOP is an extreme, out of touch, ignorant party. That matters, when we're talking about making policy.
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Don't get me wrong: I admire Obama's style, and I think that reaching out is the right thing to do. But leadership, like parenting, sometimes means saying "no" when small children demand candy/Republicans demand non-stimulative tax cuts.