Wooing the so-called "center"

Paul Krugman in Monday's (2/9) NY Times again expresses his dissatisfaction with Obama. This time in regard to the present condition of the so-called Stimulus Package as it moves forward. (See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/opinion/09krugman.html.) He chastises Obama for wooing the so-called Democrat and Republican "centrists" who are only slightly less destructive than rest of the right to a solution to an economy in free fall. For these so-called centrists it is more a case of economic illiteracy than maliciousness. But in general the GOP has absolutely nothing at all to gain by cooperating one iota with Obama' s counter-recessionary gambit. So why pursue bipartisanship anyway? Apparently the Obama administration believes they can’t allow this program to be tied up and left hanging by a filibuster, while things continue to deteriorate. Hence the wooing of the so-called “centrists. ” Of course the entire US political spectrum has move steadily to right since the 1970s, so the concept of “the center” is really only relative. If this thing fails either through the undermining of its effectiveness or by its own inherent defects, they, the Republicans, win. Remember this is not 1933 and many things are different, and no one really knows what will work. So they don't want their fingerprints on it.

Most economists believe relative to the size if of the US economy, it’s too small, and (even in the House version) somewhat incorrectly focused (too many tax cuts to higher income people and business.) So the GOP will grandstand and filibuster and mess things up for the Demos as best they can while the confused ill-informed masses continue to hit the bricks and shutter their foreclosed castles.

Again this is not the 1930s and the complex array of media influences on the population is very different. Also FDR did not have to embark on a massive deficit spending program with a looming carry-over of a 10.7 trillion-dollar national debt already incurred. It is counter intuitive to most people that massive further borrowing is the only known means to arrest this free fall. Lowering taxes, as ineffective as it is, has a visceral appeal, and the intellectually dishonest, conniving right knows it.

I just wish Obama had started with a more radical and drastic original proposal so that there would have been more room for bargaining.