PITY the US Republicans. Defeated in the presidential election, depleted in Congress and departing from the White House in disgrace, they are a shell of their previously bullish selves.
According to a recent Rasmussen poll, almost half of Republicans think their problem is not that they have been too right-wing, but too moderate. More than half think the Alaska governor and defeated vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin offers the best model for their party. To the extent that they have learned any lessons from their defeat, they seem to be the wrong ones.
One of the few people prepared to give Republicans the time of day at the moment is President Barack Obama. For the past two weeks, Obama has been desperately trying to persuade them to support his economic stimulus package. But when the stimulus plan came to the floor not a single House Republican voted for it. Later that evening Obama invited some of those Republicans over for cocktails and started the wooing all over again.
Alongside invoking God, patriotism and the spirit of the Founding Fathers, every presidential candidate pledges to reach across the aisle, dampen partisan rancor and put the interests of the voters first. But this was particularly true for Obama, who pledged a different, more consensual, approach to politics in Washington. But while it makes sense as a process, as a principle bipartisanship is worthless, since it depends entirely on who you are engaging with and to what purpose. The war in Iraq, the war on terror and the deregulation of the economy were all bipartisan efforts. All have been disastrous. Many Democrats went along with these things not because they thought they were good for the country, but because they believed that not to do so would be detrimental to their party.
The problem that has plagued Washington over the last few years is not “partisanship” that supports one idea or another, but a more sectarian “partysanship” that supports the interests of one party over an idea. The problem with George Bush was not that he did not listen to anybody else’s ideas, it was that his ideas were terrible.
Viewed in this light, the Republican response to Obama’s overtures makes a grim kind of sense. Given the ballooning budget deficit and failure of tax cuts under their watch, the Republicans have no ideological integrity. So in the absence of a clear alternative or coherent leadership, they have decided to distance themselves from the entire project.
They have calculated that if the stimulus package works, Obama will get the credit anyway. And if it doesn’t, they don’t want to be associated with it. It’s not constructive — but it is at least politically cogent.
It is the overtures themselves that are bewildering. The burning priority for Americans at this juncture is not that their two main parties work together. It’s that their government does something to revive the economy. The concessions Obama has made to the Republicans have actually made that outcome less likely.
Virtually every reputable economist agrees that the most effective way of pumping money into the economy quickly, in order to create jobs, is through public spending. Individual tax cuts are more likely to be saved, and business tax cuts take a long time to take effect.
As the economic stimulus bill goes to the Senate for negotiation, there is a real possibility that Obama may end up with the worst of all worlds: An inadequate stimulus package that has been watered down by the Republicans; a huge budget deficit; and still no support from the Republicans.
This economic crisis has given the president the opportunity to do for the poor what 9/11 gave Bush the chance to do for the oil companies. When capital is in such short supply, he shouldn’t squander it on a subprime party.
