Is a Good Enough Stimulus Good Enough?

By Gloria Feldt | February 14, 2009 |

Seems like the 787 billion dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 stimulus package Congress has passed and sent to the President’s desk is just good enough. Though notable for its size, it doesn’t advance bold initiatives that could define Obama’s presidency, nor does it grapple with big, confounding issues like universal health care. It’s incremental rather than transformational. But it’s good enough to mind-shift us into a more optimistic view of the short term economy and to offer real help to many hurt by the downturn.

(If you want a quick look at how we’re going to spend 787 billion, see this chart. That sounds like “real money“, but it’s amazing how quickly it goes when you break it down–well, incrementally. For a more detailed summary, the Center for Law and Social Policy provides descriptions and tables with estimated state-by-state impacts of key provisions. Read that full report here.)

Though many economists say the package isn’t big enough, and feminists wonder whether it does enough to build the human infrastructure, Republicans are predictably squealing it’s too big and too diffuse. This despite all the effort Obama went to to engage and appease his Republican colleagues. I thought by now he would have learned the hooker principle (get paid first) and not have expended so much political capital trying to win over those who want only to create campaign issues with which to wrest back Congressional seats in 2010 and take the White House away from him in 2012. (Remember Newt and the Contract on America in 1994?)

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Obama’s Tunnel at the End of the Light

By Gloria Feldt | January 8, 2009 |

I had a bet with myself about how long it would take for the top Washington pundits to go from slathering adulation like butter on Barack Obama’s every move to finding a snarky way to spin the exact same actions.

By bright and early January 6, after Bill Richardson had withdrawn from nomination as Commerce secretary due to financial scandal back home in New Mexico and some folks had objected to CIA director-nominee Leon Panetta, NBC’s Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd told the awakening nation on the Today Show, “The 2008 transition was smooth; the 2009 transition is already rocky.” Shortly, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz beat the “Obama has had a bad week” drum, adding that the flap over putting Roland Burrris into Obama’s senate seat was getting in the way of Obama’s desire to move his economic package swiftly—and (oh, they love this) the Republicans stood Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid down on Burris, hoping to taint the president-elect with Blagojevich slime.

I mean really, the guy hasn’t even been sworn in yet. I thought they’d give him till at least January 15.

Still, I know from my experience as a movement leader that it doesn’t take long in Washington for those who were singing your praises to start chewing you up. Sometimes simultaneously. Beltway culture is fueled by conflict, and the voracious media has nothing to chew about if there’s no political pugilism. But a leader can’t be deterred by this; in fact, he or she is beter off to embrace it as a fact of life.

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