The Die is Cast
President Obama has now signed the stimulus bill. It is a victory he had to have, for he could not, having staked so much on the passage of one, afford to lose.
He also paid a very heavy price for his victory, the cost of which will become evident with the passage of time. In casting his lot with the left wing barons on the Hill who inserted indefensible non-stimulus spending in the package, and by giving only lip service to bi-partisanship, and in the end the back of his hand to the GOP, Obama ceded the middle ground. In refusing to impose his hand at the get go and forcing Speaker Pelosi to seriously negotiate with the GOP, or by sending his own bill to the Hill and insisting that seats be provided both sides at the table, he has irrevocably cast his lot with a faction in the House that will force him left at every turn. The real victors were the democratic barons who owe nothing to Obama, do not need him to win their districts, do not answer to him and will not suffer if Obama’s numbers plummet. “I won. You didn’t.” Fair enough. But Obama seems to have forgotten that he won because the public had had its fill of George Bush, not because the American people had taken a sharp turn left.
President Clinton once remarked to Dick Morris about the early years of his term, “I became so liberal I didn't even recognize myself.” Clinton was conceding that he lacked the leverage to impose his will on a Democratic Congress. It is a commodity Clinton lost just weeks into his first term by ceding too much of his authority to the House leadership. The GOP won in 1994 because the public was not willing to abide the leftwing turn of a Democratic Congress Clinton could not control.
Where now for Obama? He’d best watch his back. The real threat comes not from the Republicans locked outside the house. It comes from the democrats in Obama’s house who pretend to be his friends. Like kids who help themselves to the change on their parent’s dresser, they will bit by bit relieve Obama of his political capital.
The Congress has now added half a trillion to the baseline federal budget. The deficits cannot go on forever. Obama will eventually have to inflate his way out of the red ink or pay for it with a whopping tax increase on the middle class. That is not what America voted for in 2008.
