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Saturday, January 10, 2009
A question of alternative history
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
How would things be different right now if it were “President-elect John McCain?”
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Congress, Obama at odds? Great!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Key measures of President-elect Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan are facing a barrage of criticism from some Senate Democrats, with one charging that the plan’s tax breaks were a return to “trickledown” economics. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, says many of the tax credits in the stimulus plan amount to “trickledown” economics.
During a lengthy closed-door meeting Thursday evening with Democratic senators on Capitol Hill, Larry Summers, chosen to head the National Economic Council, and senior Obama adviser David Axelrod heard complaints about the stimulus plan, according to two senior Democratic aides who attended the meeting.
“The concern seemed to be that people feel like the infrastructure projects are certain to create jobs and the business tax breaks are less certain to create jobs, and that’s what our focus needs to be,” one of the aides said.
In particular, members said they did not think the idea of giving employers a $3,000 tax credit for each employee they hire would work.
“I’d rather spend the money on the infrastructure, on direct investment, on energy conversion and other kinds of things much more directly and much more rapidly and much more certainly create a real job,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts.
That’s a great development, for a couple of reasons. First, the congressional Democrats are probably right. In an economy like this one, the goal is to inject a lot of money as quickly as possible and produce as many jobs as possible, and tax credits just won’t do that as efficiently. So anything they can do to push the administration in that direction is good.
Second, and perhaps more important, it means that Congress is going to insist on having its say with the Obama administration, and that the executive and legislative branches will once again operate as checks on each other, as the Constitution envisions. That didn’t happen for much of the Bush administration, and the administration — and the country — paid a heavy price for that groupthink approach.
Dissent is healthy. That’s what the country was built upon, and we shouldn’t be afraid of it.
