It's time for Obama to potty-train the GOP

[Enrique]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/its-time-for-obama-to-pot_b_165613.html

When my daughter was about 7 years old, she went to a birthday party where each child got to pick one wrapped gift out of a grab bag. Another child (ironically, or not so ironically, the son of a wealthy businessman with a $40 million trust fund) liked my daughter's gift better than the one he had picked. He asked my daughter if he could hold her gift for a minute. My daughter politely let him. When she asked for it back, his face turned red, he yelled "no tradebacks", and ran away screaming.

This boy's childish and boorish behavior reminds me of Congressional Republicans in their response to Obama's attempts at "bipartisanship" on the Economic Stimulus Bill. As with a spoiled child, Obama has two choices: he can let Congressional Republicans get away with their childish behavior, or he can try to teach them how to behave in civilized company.

Obama attempted to treat Congressional Republicans like responsible grown-ups. In an effort to gain Republican support in this national emergency, he put forth a pre-compromised stimulus bill with about 40% Republican-oriented tax cuts to 60% Democratic-oriented spending (without ever asking first if Congressional Republicans would go along.)

In return, Congressional Republicans yelled "no tradebacks" over and over in front of the TV cameras; House Republicans gave the already-compromised Stimulus Bill exactly 0 votes; and Senate Republicans threatened to not even allow the majority of the Senate to vote on the Bill by filibustering. Finally one Republican child, Susan Collins of Maine, came forward and, acting like she had been elected President, agreed she would allow a vote on the Bill if Democrats would cut out about $80 billion dollars in stimulative spending and add about $64 billion in minimally-stimulative tax cuts mostly to the wealthiest 20%, which by Paul Krugman's estimates, would eliminate about 600,000 jobs. Two other Republican friends from Collins' little so-called "centrist" clique, Olympia Snow and Arlen Specter, said they'd go along too.

(...)