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Michael Hirsh is -- sadly -- making sense on this:
Obama's desire to begin a "post-partisan" era may have backfired. In his eagerness to accommodate Republicans and listen to their ideas over the past week, he has allowed the GOP to turn the haggling over the stimulus package into a decidedly stale, Republican-style debate over pork, waste and overspending. This makes very little economic sense when you are in a major recession that only gets worse day by day. Yes, there are still some very legitimate issues with a bill that's supposed to be "temporary" and "targeted"—among them, large increases in permanent entitlement spending, and a paucity of tax cuts requiring immediate spending. Even so, Obama has allowed Congress to grow embroiled in nitpicking over efficiency when the central debate should be about whether the package is big enough. When you are dealing with a stimulus of this size, there are going to be wasteful expenditures and boondoggles. There's no way anyone can spend $800 to $900 billion quickly without waste and boondoggles. It comes with the Keynesian territory. This is an emergency; the normal rules do not apply.But the public isn't hearing about that all-important distinction right now. And by the time Obama signs a bill—if he can get one approved—many Americans may have concluded that the GOP is right and that the Democrats have embarked on another spending spree, as if this were just another wearying Washington debate.The debate is truly off-course when Olympia Snowe and Ben Nelson are talking about cutting the stimulus by $200 billion and the conversation is focused on individual programs rather than the macroeconomic effect. Hirsh doesn't really offer a way to change course. But it would seem that Obama, Rahm, and the Senate leadership need to exert enough control over their 58 Democrats that the question becomes how long the Republicans can let their moderates hold out. And this remains a new and a popular administration. Surely these senators are going to want their legislative and political support in the coming months. It's time to use some capital. Isn't that what Rahm is there for?
