And So It Goes...

In the end, the economic crisis was too good an opportunity not to exploit. That Mr. Obama ran on a post-partisan basis makes the deed all the more distasteful.

As the President has noted the Stimulus Package is needed now, yet the package approved by the House and Senate include leisurely implementations and programs of doubtful value to stimulating the economy - funding for contraceptives comes to mind.

Early on the key word was "infrastructure". We were going to use the Stimulus Package to re-build infrastructure (e.g. roads, bridges, etc which do need repair and something with which I am in full agreement). Last evening I listened to a poor congressman trotted out like puppy to try and defend transfer payments from the Feds to the States as being infrastructure. Ah, no. The Wall Street Journal yesterday calculated only $30B of the $818B as being truly infrastructure dollars - a paltry 3.6% of the package. Yet if you ask your co-workers most will parrot the Presidents line that the package is primarily about repairing the infrastructure.

If all we are getting is more-of-the same politics-as-usual, then the President has sown the seeds of his eventual defeat.

Bottom Line: If (huge IF) the President truly desires to be post-partisan then the best thing he could do is to veto this mess and send the Congress back to develop something that is truly stimulating to the economy and not just the mother of all pork barrels.