[T]here is a general tendency to accentuate the negative. Partisans of both sides focus on what has been lost in compromise, but there is a crucial difference in the quality of complaint. Conservatives tend to look upon compromise and shout: "Betrayal!" Liberals have more often tended to sigh: "Well, I figured as much." The blogosphere has given liberalism an often necessary jolt of the former disposition, but it's still the general reflex of the liberal mind (again, including my own) to assume the worst and nod knowingly as it inevitably happens.
Well, today, I announce my emancipation from such habits. Goodbye to all that. The stimulus bill, imperfect as it is, does indeed represent an enormous political victory for Obama. For reasons tactical as well as substantive, liberals ought to declare victory and dance on the vast empty tundra that is the Republican present.
(Emphasis supplied.) As I understand it, Tomasky is declaring the Senate stimulus bill an enormous victory for liberalism, Obama and Democrats. Oh and forget the "bipartisan" schtick. I kid you not. To me, that is declaring defeat. This inadequate and compromised bill, will fail without more and Tomasky wants liberalism to own it. Remarkable. To be fair, as Tomasky himself writes, he acknwoledges that some folks' concerns are about, you know, whether the bill will work:
Now, to be fair, the big concern of liberals who are unhappy with this bill - they wanted it to be larger, and less focused on tax cuts - is the central question of whether it will work. They say, this is our best shot in 30 years at showing that government can be part of the solution, and it damn well better show that. They're doubtful that this bill can.
. . . Liberals should press the administration for the most progressive outcome possible. That's fine and laudable. But at the same time, let's understand that they got about 80% of what they wanted here, and getting 80% of what you want is awfully rare, in politics or marriage or at the office or anywhere.
Who's "they" Kemosabi? If you mean the Obama Administration, well that's the point isn't it? "They" did not put forward a bill adequate for the moment. Tomasky writes:
Think back. Two months ago, people were talking nervously about a stimulus package worth about $400bn. Now? Assuming the Senate and House of Representatives more or less split the difference between their two versions of the bill - they will likely iron those out this week and vote on the final passage of the new product by the week's end - we're talking twice that, with at least $500bn in new spending (the rest is tax cuts). That is, by some distance, the largest public spending bill ever conceived in the US.
Think back Mike. Two months ago, 1.2 million more Americans had a job than do today. And as for this being "the largest public spending bill ever conceived in the US," this is just false in real dollars. The New Deal initiatives spent over (in current dollar terms) 8.3 trillion dollars. In other words, more than 8 times the total spending in this bill. Tomasky is simply ignoring reality here.
And therein lies the problem. For a liberal, Tomasky has a funny notion of what the role government spending needs to be in this economic calamity. In arguing that Obama got most of what he wanted (80%), Tomasky writes:
In early 2001, George Bush proposed a $1.6 trillion tax cut. That April, the Senate cut $450bn out of it. Moderate liberal senators then put the brakes on legislation they saw as too conservative, just as moderate conservative senators last week did the same to legislation they thought too liberal. We can like it or not like it, but it's what the Senate was designed to do in the first place. Indeed, from a purely constitutional perspective, the Senate played its role here appropriately. This should not have surprised anyone.
Strange evidence for arguing what a political success this stimulus package is. George Bush, who LOST the popular vote in 2000, had the political juice to pass a 1.2 TRILLION dollar tax cut in 2001. Barack Obama, who won a sweeping victory last November, can barely muster $500 billion in stimulus spending in the face of the Greatest Depression. Some "victory."
It is ironic that Tomasky, who seems to think something more was not possible, considers himself the "optimist" while those who think much more was possible are the "pessimists." I think it is precisely the reverse.
Speaking for me only
