Friday, January 30, 2009

Biden Praise For GOP ?/ Obama Playing Catch-up ?

Even Joe Biden admits that the stimulus bill passed by the House needs lots of work. Biden says that the bill will "get better" in the Senate, in part because of Republican suggestions, which he says will lead to additional tax cuts and more infrastructure spending (hopefully at the expense of some of the non-investment spending identified in an earlier post. Is Biden admitting that Republicans are playing a constructive role here by opposing the bill in it's current form?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/28917177

UPDATE:

Gordon Smith, over at Conglomerate, agrees with Peggy Noonan's assertion that President Obama should have taken Republican objections to the House stimulus bill more seriously. Instead of simply meeting with the Republicans, Noonan says, Obama should have also listened to them. Smith opines that President Obama's failure to do so was a "big whiff" that could set the tone for the Obama administration. Perhaps Biden's comments suggest that the Obama administration is now playing catch-up, working to make changes in the package to meet Republican objections.

Here is the link to Gordon's post, which in turn links to Noonan's latest.

http://www.theconglomerate.org/2009/01/the-final-bill-was-privately-agreed-by-most-and-publicly-conceded-by-many-to-be-a-big-messy-largely-.html

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345157d569e201053703b876970c