Will there Be a Recovery Package?

The "stimulus" or recovery package may happen soon. At least two Republican senators have broken ranks with their obstructionist brethren. But this bodes ill for the future. While spewing rhetoric about bipartisanship, McCain, McConnell and the rest offered no such thing. They demanded that the Congress accept their package or nothing. Their package was just a redux of the 2001 GWBush Tax cuts: call it Bush Tax Cuts II. More big tax breaks for the wealthy and very little for the consumers whose lack of spending will drive a depression.

In the end, it looks like the President will win on this one. We'll get some big spending that will hopefully put contractors and then subcontractors back to work, re-employing some of the 3.5 million who have lost their jobs since September and re-invigorating local economies. But if Obama needs 60 votes for each piece of legislation from here on out, and if the Republicans take the Rush Limbaugh line ("I want Obama to fail") then it's going to be a long four years. Especially because the American public has never been good at understanding whom to blame. They will as likely blame Democrats for the Republicans' obstructionism, simply complaining that the Democrats did not fulfil their promises, without analyzing why. Republicans appear to be counting on this. All in all, it has been a good week for them. But a very bad week for America. It could be worse, though. It could be what Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia did to his own party, skewering President Clinton and handing him his first major defeat of his presidency, keeping in place a bar on millions of Americans from serving in the military just because they happen to be gay.