You Call This Discipline, Mr. President?

Am I the only one baffled and a little bit disappointed in the speech by President Obama last night? Let’s recall that House Democrats wrote their version of the stimulus bill without any pretense of soliciting Republican input, and were happy to pass it without a single vote from across the aisle. The public greeted the result with nearly universal condemnation for the vast array of unnecessary, silly, or even offensive provisions. Polling indicates that public support for the bill has fallen below 50 percent and recedes every day.

As action shifted to the Senate, President Obama encountered a problem with Democrats. During a meeting with Senator Susan Collins, he agreed that the $920 billion stimulus gorilla needed diet, and pledged to see the bill come in at least $100 billion smaller. What happened? During a day of vigorous amendments, Senate Democrats pumped the bill up to $995 billion, a development that sparked a revolt among House Democrat Blue Dogs.

So it was a bit shocking to have the President open his remarks with sweeping praise for the “discipline” of the House Democrats effort. Discipline is the last adjective that most would assign to the House effort. And it was disappointing to see him retreat to a partisan broadside against Republicans, when in fact it is Republicans who are engaged in a bipartisan effort to save the Democrats from their internal divisions and bring the bill closer to the President’s stated wishes. And, frankly, it was at odds with the facts to assert that opponents of the bill were standing in the way of the change Americans want – the public hates this bill.

There is a bipartisan understanding that the economy is in trouble, and a bipartisan commitment to rapid action that will address the freefall. And one of the best things to include in stimulus is more rapid implementation of things that you want to do anyway. But therein lies the real clash of agendas.

For Democrats, this apparently means big, new spending programs in health, education, transportation, energy, environment, and other areas to address social goals and economic infrastructure (broadly defined). For Republicans, it means cutting marginal tax rates to improve growth incentives. Once the need for stimulus is over, Republicans don’t trust Democrats to cut other spending to accommodate their new programs and keep the debt explosion at bay. And Democrats don’t trust Republicans to engage in the loophole-closing, base-broadening that will transform stimulus tax cuts into needed tax reform.

I understand that a dinner with the home team is a tempting occasion for a partisan podium-thumper. But it was an even better opportunity for a measured lecture to his Democratic colleagues about their contribution to the failures that have slowed the Senate effort. Repeating his commitment to reducing the scale of unnecessary spending in the bill would have gone a long way to bridge the skepticism that plagues this debate.