Let me be clear: Democrats are the second worst party in American politics. The first worst is the Republicans.
What makes me say on this particular day that the Democrats the second worst, and not the first best?
First of all, Democrats have dominated Washington for only about two weeks, and they are already losing their first major battle over the House Democrats’ $800-billion-plus stimulus package. As E. J. Dionne writes in his column “Obama Losing Stimulus Fight to Defeated GOP,” Republican attacks may rely on making mountains out of molehills, but the attacks are sticking:
But such volleys have gone largely unreturned, and the biggest danger for Obama will come if Republican attacks erode support for the stimulus among Democrats. That’s why the president will be spending more time with congressional Democrats in the coming days. The administration’s visionary emphasis on winning expansive Republican support has been replaced by a down-to-earth struggle to get a bill through the Senate.
Why are Democrats losing? There are clues in this piece of reporting by Slate’s John Dickerson, entitled “Bipartisalesmanship.”
Many Senate Democrats claim that the bill has too many provisions that don’t meet the definition of “timely, targeted, and temporary.” This irritates their House colleagues, in part because it echoes a line House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once used against Republicans in a previous stimulus debate and in part because it echoes the spin Republicans are using against this stimulus bill. Republicans hope to define the bill by its smallest and most absurd provisions even if they are a tiny fraction of its cost. When Democrats also single out those provisions, they are merely “repeating GOP talking points,” as one Democratic House leadership aide put it. …
The tension for Obama is how far to go in accommodating the Senate without causing too much heartburn among Democrats in the House. House Speaker Pelosi met with OMB Director Peter Orszag and White House economic adviser Larry Summers Tuesday night in her House office and let them know her caucus could go only so far. It would be able to accept some of the tax-cut provisions being added to the Senate bill, like the adjustment that keeps the Alternative Minimum Tax from hitting middle-class families. But House Democrats were not going to see the bill they put together thoroughly undone.
The worry is not so much that Obama will lose the vote on the stimulus bill because of Democratic defections. It’s that his allies in the House and Senate will have to swallow hard to support it, or that the process of getting to yes will be bruising. This will create resistance for the next tough vote Obama asks them to take. If he creates too much trouble for himself, by the end of the year the president’s office hours will have to extend all day long.
I used to call this stimulus bill “Obama’s” stimulus bill — because that’s how I heard Nancy Pelosi describe it in an interview a few weeks ago. But I see now that the bill was “put together” by House Republicans who are “not going to see the bill they put together thoroughly undone.”
Unfortunately, the bill they “put together” was put together in a way that invites mockery. Here’s more from Dickerson’s report:
Barack Obama held office hours Wednesday. In 15-minute increments in the early afternoon, he met in the Oval Office with senators who want to modify his stimulus bill. Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska talked about removing spending provisions from the bill. He has a tentative list of cuts totaling more than $50 billion that include everything from $122.5 million for new and renovated polar icebreakers to $198 million in military benefits for Filipino veterans of World War II.
Why does the “stimulus” bill include $198 million in military benefits for Filipino veterans of World War II? Are we meant to believe that John Maynard Keynes himself would recommend extending military benefits to Filipinos as a way to stimulate the economy?
E.J. Dionne writes in his column:
Obama’s network appearances were planned as a response to a wholly unanticipated development: Republicans — short on new ideas, low on votes, and deeply unpopular in the polls — have been winning the media wars over the president’s central initiative.
They have done so largely by focusing on minor bits of the stimulus that amount, as Obama said in at least two of his network interviews, to “less than 1 percent of the overall package.” But Republicans have succeeded in defining the proposal by its least significant parts.
Gosh! Who would have expected that? Republicans opposing a spending bill by pointing out the most absurd and laughable items in the bill? In case my sarcasm isn’t coming across, let me be clear: Whichever Congressman or Congresswoman decided to put $198 million in military benefits for Filipino veterans into this bill should have to wear a scarlet “I” on their lapels for the entirety of this Congress. (“I” stands for IDIOT!) $198 million may not seem like a lot of money when stacked up against an $800-billion-plus bill, but the damage this silly provision is doing to the larger bill’s prospects in Congress is vast — and the same can be said for dozens of other ridiculous provisions.
Consider this from a recent column by George Will:
During World War II, Oscar Levant, the pianist and wit, was asked by his draft board, “Do you think you can kill?” He replied, “I don’t know about strangers, but friends, yes.” Barack Obama might have felt that way when his Democratic friends in Congress proposed expanding contraception services as an economic “stimulus.” Defending that (which was eventually dropped as indefensible), Nancy Pelosi said, “States are in terrible fiscal budget crises,” partly because of all they do for children’s health and education. Therefore, contraception, by reducing the number of wee parasites, “will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.” So: Children are a net cost to government and therefore (non sequitur alert) counterstimulative. Pelosi argues that a trillion dollars of other government outlays will be stimulative. In any case, the stimulus effect of more contraception would have been at least nine months in arriving.
What Democrat moron thought it would be a good idea to put contraceptives in this bill? Maybe this Democrat wasn’t a moron — maybe he was a saboteur sent into Congress undercover to plant provisions in the stimulus bill that would enable George Will to write columns like this one. Or maybe Nancy Pelosi decided to put an early stop to all Obama’s talk of bipartisanship by forcing our new president to support a bill too littered with nonsense to attract even 100% of Democrats, let along a Republican or two.
House Democrats won’t get their contraceptives now, nor will they score their benefits for Filipino veterans. But because of stupid items such as these, Democrats may end up having no choice except to accept changes that could actually weaken the bill. (Spending on contraceptives and benefits for Filipino veterans may be highly beneficial — but it doesn’t belong in this bill, as it contributes to the notion that the bill is just a hodge-podge of random spending items.)
Nancy Pelosi says House Democrats will “only go so far” in allowing their bill to be modified. She’s clearly threatening Obama, saying House Dems will actually vote down the bill if it is significantly altered so it can pass in the Senate.
Here’s my advice to Obama: Screw Pelosi. Do whatever it takes to get a bipartisan bill, even if it means alienating some Congressional Democrats. Otherwise, the age of Democratic dominance may be cut short by some MORON Congressman and his benefits for Filipino veterans. (No offense to Filipinos.)
I don’t know much about his this stimulus bill was initially put together, but I do know that obstruction has always been a standard Republican MO — at least since 94 — and the media is filled with willful accomplices in trumping up controversy. After all, doesn’t each side have a valid point? No, each side does not have a valid point. Flat earthers should be treated in the media as the fringe fact-free folk they are.
That any Republican can stand up in the arena of public discourse and be treated seriously on economic issues says something profound about the failure of our media to make basic assessments of fact. I am pretty confident that the Republicans would be fighting this stimulus no matter what was in it, unless it was 100% tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.
The strategic error we’re seeing here isn’t primarily Congress’s, I think, but Obama’s. Obama’s efforts to reach out across the aisle — his emphasis on bipartisanship — is mistaken. The American people have kicked the bums out of the legislative and executive branches of government, and Obama is trying to have cocktail night at the White House so he can get 80 votes in the Senate? That way lies madness.
Obama’s message has been one of bipartisanship — a “Look, we all have some good ideas here” attitude. The Republicans’ message has been one of savage attack — a “These guys are con-men and shysters” attitude. Is it any wonder that the bill is being pushed rightward? The Dean Bakers of the world meanwhile rage against the right-wing crazies in little isolated pockets of the blogosphere — and occasionally now on MSNBC — and the White House talks about how it’s sort of pretty important that this gets passed, ideally bipartisanly cause those guys over there on the other side of the aisle have some decent ideas too and oh do pass me another beer and let me shake some Congressional Republican hands. The White House needs to get its messaging machine fixed pronto and coordinate with Democrats in Congress if it wants to pass its priorities — say, for example, on health care.
The great error here is Obama’s fantasy that 80 Senators — that is, a good number of Republicans — would ever be collegial and friendly and willing to work through a reasonable compromise. Bipartisan overtures have always been the exclusive obsession of Democrats. The fantasy has to end, now, for the good of the country. Compromise eventually, yes, but negotiate from a position of strength.
Comment by Lee — February 5, 2009 @ 4:41 am
Also: Based on your posting here, isn’t it absolutely unambiguously clear that the Republicans aren’t arguing against the stimulus in good faith? That they’re engaged in a purely vile propaganda campaign against the Democrats by focusing in on some tiny tiny fraction of the bill’s content — and then even while focused on that tiny tiny amount making clearly fallacious arguments about the definition of a stimulus? Why shouldn’t Obama and Congressional Democrats jointly treat Republicans as anything more than what they consistently reveal themselves to be: bullies uninterested in governing responsibly?
Comment by Lee — February 5, 2009 @ 4:51 am
You have to admit it was tactically stupid to throw all those grab bag items in as President Obama was pushing bipartisanship. You could have done the Pelosi “we won” strategy or the Obama “what can we get 80 votes on” but now you have neither and its degraded to us vs. them. Good thing we’re not in a time of national crisis.
Comment by John — February 5, 2009 @ 9:55 am
Lee, you say Obama’s problem is “bipartisanship” but that has nothing to do with fact that the Dems are losing.
Ordinary Americans who aren’t progressive activists love Obama’s “bipartisanship,” which has been mostly limited to meeting with people, sharing cocktails, and suggesting the other side isn’t evil. Were Obama to start demonizing Republicans in order to polarize the country, I don’t believe that would earn more votes for this stimulus bill.
You say Obama should “negotiate from a position of strength,” and I completely agree — one way to negotiate from a position of strength is to put together a bill that invites criticism and then launch a negative assault on those who criticize in order to roll over them. Another way to negotiate from a position of strength is to put together a bill that any reasonable person would support, wait for those who criticize to make their unreasonable criticisms, and then calmly but devastatingly point out how unreasonable they are being.
The latter strategy is obviously better. It isn’t a “what we can get 80 votes on” strategy — it’s “what we can get the American people’s support on” strategy.
You say. “Isn’t it unambiguously clear that the Republicans aren’t arguing against the stimulus in good faith?”
What about Ben Nelson? Why has thie Democrat decided to argue against the bill? You can try to make politics about punishing people you think are arguing “in bad faith,” but often the public doesn’t see the difference between a good faith argument and a bad faith argument, so it makes no sense to treat them differently. The thing to do, in either case, is to win the argument. But how do you win an argument for military benefits for Filipino veterans? In this context?
You say each side doesn’t have a valid point in this case. And you want the media to agree with you that the Republicans don’t have a valid point. But the House Democrats were stupid to bet the future of the stimulus bill on the expectation that the media would agree, when in fact, as you said, the media doesn’t usually take sides in the sort of conflict.
You say the Republican’s arguments are “clearly fallacious.” But my point is that they aren’t CLEARLY fallacious. If they were, Democrats would be scoring points by pointing out how clearly fallacious they are. Instead, Republicans are scoring points by pointing out how clearly random the contraceptives provision is.
Comment by Ian — February 5, 2009 @ 11:06 am
If the problem is genuinely the grab bag, and the grab bag items are less than 1% of the stimulus, then there’s really no reason for panic–or even for concern. Democrats need simply remove the offending 1%, pass the stimulus, and everyone’s happy. Democrats can even say that “We had to make some hard sacrifices, but in the spirit of bipartisanship we compromised.”
No, my sense is that this post is concerned with the Democrat’s inability to control the debate around the stimulus. That’s a public relations problem. You’re right, Ian, that the Democrats should not trust the media to do its job of vetting facts. That’s why my responses primarily focused on the flubbed media message machine and the need to improve messaging.
Democrats need to operate from the knowledge that whether there is 1% of the bill that is subject to ridicule or .001% or even 0% Republicans will always act as if the bill is 100% pure silly/dangerous liberalism. Witness the reaction to Obama’s alleged “10%” decrease in military spending, when in fact Obama is increasing military spending to exactly the levels Bush was planning to. Does the media report that the charge is inaccurate? Not that I’ve seen.
My point is that it should be clear that the actual behavior of Congress or Obama isn’t going to change the charges leveled against Democrats or the magnitude of the media’s coverage of the opposition. And yet despite that — and despite the plurality that has problems with this particular bill — 75% of Americans think some version of a stimulus ought to be passed.
This stimulus is going to pass, I suspect in much the same form it exists now. From a strategy perspective, the better path would have been to create a bill that invites attack for “going too far,” then to push a little back to the right as a response, tie a bow on that called compromise or bipartisanship, and be done. That’s negotiating strategy 101. This bill, which incorporated Republican concerns over spending too much, and tax/spending ratio, from the beginning garnered literally zero Republican votes in the House, and worries economics because it isn’t large enough.
Let me turn the question you ask around: Were House Republicans justified in not voting for a stimulus because of Filipino veterans? Why do Republicans hate Filipino veterans?
Comment by Lee — February 5, 2009 @ 11:47 am
[...] up on Ian’s frustration with the Democratic Party’s failure to sell the stimulus, I would like to direct your [...]
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