Some Honeymoon

The stimulus debate in Congress has placed President Obama in a difficult position. With large majorities in both Houses he and Democrats can essentially do anything they want, which in the first major effort of his Presidency is actually panning out to be a negative. Carte Blanche has given Democrats on the Hill all the latitude they need to succumb to their worst instincts, using the country's economic emergency as an opportunity to spend on all manner of their pet causes and special interest constituencies under the guise of "stimulus." As Peggy Noonan writes, Democrats are making themselves appear "not like people who are responding to a crisis, or even like people who are ignoring a crisis, but people who are using a crisis." The more the light of day is shed on this legislation the more terrible it looks, to the point now where just about everybody acknowledges it is a lemon, publicly or privately. Yet with such dominant partisan control of Congress it is probably going to speed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the President's desk, ripe and ready for his signature.

What is he to do? He surely knows that the bill is terrible and fails to fulfill its stated Keynesian purposes, which in turn incinerates his hope to get a bi-partisan bill that will solidify his post-partisan bona fides. Yet it's not like he can veto it or even lean too hard on party leaders privately without tearing the Democratic monolith asunder in its first few weeks; no way to celebrate what was supposed to be your honeymoon.

If and when he signs it though, without any Republican support if kept in its present form, he and Democrats will exclusively own it. They will own a bill that scarcely attempts to fulfill its nominal purpose at a great cost to the taxpayer at a time when money is scarce. Down the road voters will ask what they are getting in return for their assumption of an even greater debt burden, and they will hold the powers that be responsible for that answer.

Such conundrums are inherent to the circumstances the President finds himself in. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," and with power as absolute as it could possibly get Democrats in Congress have immediately become gluttonous. Republicans did too much of the same in previous Congresses with even less power, leaving President Bush the choice of either vetoing spending he was uncomfortable with or preserving party unity to enact higher priorities (Congressional cooperation in the execution of the War on Terror). President Obama now finds himself in the same chasm, forced to select between Option A and B, both of which are imbued with potential peril.

As I'm sure he is now realizing, the burdens of responsibility scarcely ever allow time for honeymoons.