Republicans Give Obama Credit for Listening

[babylonsister]

Obama's forcing them to be agreeable? Say it ain't so! Killin' 'em with kindness? :crazy:

Republicans Give Obama Credit for Listening

By CQ Staff | January 5, 2009 5:44 PM



President-elect Barack Obama seems to have bought himself at least a bit of goodwill from Republican leaders by coming to Capitol Hill today to hear their views on the economic stimulus package he is about to propose.

He met with Senate and House leaders from both parties this afternoon, including the top two Republican leaders from both chambers, and the comments afterwards suggested that the Republicans didn’t think his listening was just an act.

“I’m convinced, as a result of listening to the president-elect, that he is interested in what Republican ideas might be offered to the stimulus package that we anticipate him unveiling in the next few days,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told reporters. Among those ideas, McConnell said, are to make tax cuts a larger piece of the package and turn the aid to state and local governments into loans, rather than simply giving them the money.

“To the extent that it passes with a very large vote, it’ll have more credibility with the American people, and the way it’s likely to pass with a very large vote is to have significant Republican participation,” McConnell said.

more...

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/transition/2009/01/republicans-give-obama-credit.html

[w4rma]

1. Obama should be careful of those saboteurs. (nt)

[Cary]

2. Obama should depart from the Bush m.o. as much as possible.

And then stick it to the Republicans.

What are they going to do anyway? Filibuster the stimulus?

Lotsa luck on that one.

[derby378]

3. How many times do I have to say this?

No. Compromise. With. Neo-Fascists.

There are a few Republicans that I respect, even if I don't agree with them all of the time. Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, for starters. Hell, I even like Steve Forbes at times. But most of the current crop of Republicans has bought into this whole poisonous brew of neo-conservativism, Reaganomics, and dominionism, which means that they believe that if some people are poor and hungry, it's their own fault because they have no morals and no ability to capitalize on free-market dynamics, so let's just invade their country so we can build up a few new markets to fatten ourselves up a little more.

[babylonsister]

5. Fine, then nothing will get done. Maybe that's the standard we've

become used to.

[derby378]

9. I think Democrats need to press their advantage while they can

We have eight years of Bush's nightmare to negate, and compromise will only etch some of those unsavory policies into stone.

[derby378]

4. Accidental dupe

[babylonsister]

6. That's twice...

:)

[derby378]

8. Egads...

My bad. Our network connection has been slow today, so I've accidentally been duping myself. :silly:

[depakid]

7. Listening is one thing- pandering and then caving into policy demands is another

The early indications aren't pretty:

Other things equal, public investment is a much better way to provide economic stimulus than tax cuts, for two reasons. First, if the government spends money, that money is spent, helping support demand, whereas tax cuts may be largely saved. So public investment offers more bang for the buck. Second, public investment leaves something of value behind when the stimulus is over.

<snip>

What this says is that there’s a reasonable economic case for including a significant amount of tax cuts in the package, mainly in year one.

But the numbers being reported — 40 percent of the whole, two-year plan — sound high. And all the news reports say that the high tax-cut share is intended to assuage Republicans; what this presumably means is that this was the message the off-the-record Obamanauts were told to convey.

And that’s bad news.

Look, Republicans are not going to come on board. Make 40% of the package tax cuts, they’ll demand 100%. Then they’ll start the thing about how you can’t cut taxes on people who don’t pay taxes (with only income taxes counting, of course) and demand that the plan focus on the affluent. Then they’ll demand cuts in corporate taxes. And Mitch McConnell is already saying that state and local governments should get loans, not aid — which would undermine that part of the plan, too.

OK, maybe this is just a head fake from the Obama people — they think they can win the PR battle by making bipartisan noises, then accusing the GOP of being obstructionist. But I’m really worried that they’re sending off signals of weakness right from the beginning, and that they’re just going to embolden the opposition.

Like Barney Frank, I’m feeling a bit of post-partisan depression.

Updates: A few more details are emerging: $140 billion for Obama’s tax break for workers, which gives most workers $500. But it sounds as if the rest is mainly, perhaps almost entirely, tax cuts for business. Not very New Dealish.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/is-obama-relying-too-much-on-tax-cuts/