Eugene Robinson: Slam the Door on Compromise

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090209_eugene_robinson_bipartisanship_stimulus/

Slam the Door on Compromise

Posted on Feb 9, 2009

By Eugene Robinson

snip//

The House of Representatives loaded up the bill like a Christmas tree, as powerful Democrats found room for their pet projects. This was a good thing, not an outrage. Hundreds of millions of dollars for contraceptives? To the extent that those condoms or birth-control pills are made in the U.S. and sold in U.S. drug stores, that spending would be stimulative in more ways than one.

One of the most effective items in the House bill was $79 billion to be transferred to state governments, which are hurting; in California, our most populous state, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is ordering furloughs of state workers. Any dollar given to the states will fly out the door by sundown. That $79 billion would have instant impact.

But in the Senate, the ad hoc “gang” of moderate Republicans (all three of them) and conservative Democrats cut those state funds to $39 billion. It’s wrong to see this as the normal give-and-take of legislative sausage-making, the usual trek down a well-worn path toward the golden compromise that everyone can live with. This is not, repeat not, a time for compromise. Meeting in the middle, which the Senate sees as its role in our democracy, renders the whole exercise potentially useless. If we don’t get enough money into the economy, and if we don’t do it soon, we risk wasting a king’s ransom on a stimulus that’s too puny to stimulate.

This is not an issue where the answer is to be found in the “middle.” This isn’t a matter of left, right and center; it’s a matter of yes or no: Does the federal government try to get the economy moving again, or not? This will sound ridiculous, but the fact is that the details of Obama’s plan don’t matter that much. If anything, many economists believe, the government needs to spend even more than Obama proposes.

Republicans are using this debate as a branding opportunity, positioning themselves as careful stewards of the public purse. This is absurd, given their record when they were in charge. It’s also cynical. They know that some kind of stimulus will get passed anyway. If it works, they’ll claim their principled intransigence made the plan better; if it doesn’t, they’ll say “I told you so.”

Obama and the Democrats have public opinion on their side and the wolf at the door. Republicans need to get out of the way—or get run over.

[DCBob]

1. Eugene has the same or similar piece up on the WashPost...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/09/AR2009020902097.html
=====

He is one of my favorites!

[uponit7771]

2. Right side of track you're safe, left side of track you're even more safe stay in the middel get....

...hit by the train of a bad economy.

Obama has compromised a lot with those people that the American public doesn't like.

The Gallup poll showed the GOP is on the wrong side of the track with stimulus

[DCBob]

3. Question: On the final vote after conference can the Senate Republicans threaten filibuster again?

If not then it's just a simple majority vote which will pass easily.

[babylonsister]

4. I have no idea; I hope someone weighs in who does. nt

[DCBob]

5. Found the answer.... no filibustering but they still need 60... I think

"According to Senate rules, a bill that has emerged from a joint conference cannot be filibustered and could be passed with a simple majority. A 60-vote majority, however, may still be needed to waive provisions of the Budget Act, as required by Senate rules when a pending bill raises the federal deficit."

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8099/

[Teaser]

7. The 60 vote margin has already been met.

That's what the 60 were needed to get the bill out of the Senate in the first place. It was not a filibuster requirement.

Out of conference, it does not need 60 votes.

[DCBob]

8. What about the 60 votes needed to wave federal deficit provisions of the Budget Act?

"A 60-vote majority, however, may still be needed to waive provisions of the Budget Act, as required by Senate rules when a pending bill raises the federal deficit."

[trayfoot]

9. Yes, they CAN threaten filibuster again.

[MadHound]

6. I've been saying this all along,

Screw compromise, you can't compromise with 'Pugs and still put out a bill that will get maximum bang for our buck. Stick all the spending back in that was taken out, take out all the tax cuts that were put in, screw the 'Pugs and this bipartisan bullshit. We don't have that kind of money to be wasting it on tax cuts in order to appease a group of people who simply won't be appeased by anything short of getting in 100% their way.

Obama's reaching out to these people is nice, a noble gesture and all, but it's counter-productive. Instead we just need to roll right over these idiots and do the right thing.

[Bluenorthwest]

10. It seems Senators

are so self absorbed that they think the American people's desire is to see them all get along famously. That is the last thing anyone cares about who is not in or of the Senate.

[starroute]

11. This "careful stewardship" thing reminds me of my brother-in-law

When my sons were little, my mother-in-law set up small college trust funds for them, but she arranged to have my husband's older brother manage the funds after she died -- I guess because she considered him the financially prudent one.

When my older son was in college, it didn't make a difference. He got a few thousand each year from the fund and he also got work-study from the college. But with my younger son I discovered that as long as there was any money remaining in the fund he wasn't going to be able to get work-study. So I suggested to my brother-in-law that financially it would be most advantageous to spend the entire trust fund on his first year's tuition, which would make him eligible for work-study starting as a sophomore.

My brother-in-law wasn't having any of that, though. He insisted that he was mandated to manage the funds "prudently," and that meant doling them out in equal amounts each year. He just couldn't get his head around the idea that spending them all at the start would get the most benefit out of them in the long run.

I think a lot of these "centrists" are like my brother-in-law -- I recognize that mindset. They equate spending money quickly with profligacy and waste and doling it out slowly with caution and good sense, and no appeal to the facts will convince them otherwise.

[bvar22]

12. The "Centrist" Democrats who sold us out:

Remember these names.
These are the "Centrist" Democrats who crossed the aisle to help Republicans trash the Jobs Bill:

Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Mark Begich (D-AK)
Tom Carper (D-DE)
John Tester (D-MT)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Jim Webb (D-VA)
Mark Warner (D-VA)
Michael Bennett (D-CO)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Mark Udall (D-CO)
Joe Lieberman (I-CT)


A 60 vote majority in the Senate means nothing as long as these Republicans are sitting in Democratic seats.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

13. Damn straight! The time for compromise is OVER.