February 10, 2009

As Maine Goes...So Goes Pennsylvania?

 

In the shadows of the battle over the Barack Administration's stimulus bill lie unspoken fears that what is broken can't be fixed. A jump start won't work if the metaphorical engine block is cracked. It is possible that cowboy capitalism has spun so far out of control and done damage so deep, that ordinary recession fixes, even on the scale of the Obama stimulus package, may not work.
Only a finished bill will stem that mounting fear, and the president moved a huge step forward today with the Senate passage of its' version 37 - 61. Pending final House/Senate work on details, a signature-ready product is expected by this time next week at the latest.

Leaving President Obama to confront a Republican leadership that thinks it can lay low and play left-out victim, while counting on worsening unemployment figures to depress the Obama "miracle" enough to possibly shift the balance of power out of the president's reach in 2010. Unfortunately, they think they can also count on corruption erupting on Obama's watch, and also unfortunately, they may be right. With the huge amounts of money that will soon be flowing through state and local governments to contracts for local projects, trouble ahead is likely. Past Democratic reigns have produced plenty of indictments, for crimes petty and otherwise. Public tolerence for business as usual is at an all-time low, and Republicans have already felt its wrath. So much so, that they have little left to lose in a strategy of wait and see. If corruption and incompetence accompanies the administration of the stimulus package, regardless of who is at fault, the public will not continue to tolerate a Congress that can't deliver in 2010, or 2012. So, team Obama will be wise, I hope, in letting accountability roll down like thunder, and transparency like a mighty stream. In particular, with regard to the letting of contracts at the local level, where lie the most fragrant opportunities for corruption.

Today's vote was a first battle for "home field advantage" in the coming struggle over the balance of powers that will define President Obama's first term. Advantage the President; at least on the stimulus package, moderate Republicans have decided to support the administration. Obama himself has made it clear that he'll take his brand of hardball right to the neighborhood of the resistant Republican old guard, while at the same time rewarding Republican allies like Florida Governor Charlie Crist. And Obama's brand of hardball is beginning to look street-mean. His back-to-back speeches in Indiana and Florida, both critical swing states in 2008, were notable both for their location and for the way Mr. Cool laid responsibility for hard times right in the laps of the bad old boys, who - if they are smart - did not appreciate the attention drawn to the heartland of the old Confederacy...er, I mean Republican Party.

It took all the Democrats, two Independents and three Republicans to put the bill over in the Senate, 37 - 61. A shout-out across the aisle to Arlen Spector, with big kudos to the women from Maine who made it happen; Republican Senators Olympia Snow and Susan Collins. It must be good news, because when President Obama was handed a note telling him that the Bill had passed the Senate, while he was giving a speech in Florida, he said "that's good news." The expression on his face didn't change much, but he said it about four times. So I guess it's good news.

I have finally accepted the need to quit worrying about the size of the stimulus bill, and focus instead on the more immediate issue of accountability. As my wife and I were doing our daily rant about the CEO who spent $1.3 million in government funds on new office decor, and other icons of the Bush bail-out, with its disappearing $350 billion, I had a sudden flash of realization regarding the Obama stimulus bill. However painful the cuts made to get Republican votes, what is in the bill, matters much less than how the money is actually spent, and how transparent and accountable the process is.

We have just come from eight years of a cowboy president who thinks that accountability is the sound the shock absorbers on your jeep make when you're driving around the ranch in Texas. Remember the drama of last October when Henry Paulson went up to the hill with a three-page bail-out plan, and the look of grim death on his face. "Sign Here" he says, or the banking system gets it. They got it all right. Barely three months later, we learn that $350 billion, i.e., half of $700 given to the Bush Administration on the strength of Paulson's alarm, has - much like Bush himself in the last months of his administration - gone AWOL.

President Obama is too smart not to know that to continue his upward trajectory, he must spend public money wisely, and that all passed bucks land on his desk. That means targeted expenditures, careful data analysis as spending unfolds, to track correlation with job creation, public recovery of any profits generated by private companies who benefited from bail-out funds, prior to or instead of stockholders, and at the end of the day, accountability for every dime. That alone, would be radical change in America.

Beyond that, I would hope that Treasury Secretary Geithner quickly gets a line on the "lost" $350 billion; it needs to be found, and returned to the Treasury. Then the President and the Attorney General need to find the people that lost it and either fire or prosecute them. Preferably both.

Oddly, as Tim Geithner announces the Obama Administration's spending plan for the remaining $350 billion of the Bush bail-out allocation, Wall Street still goes flat. Which strikes me as some nerve. Wasn't it Wall Street that got the rest of us into this? They'll only be happy when the helium balloons loft high the days of old, which sad to say, I think are done for now.

Here is the BBC article on the Senate vote; it is worth watching the video just to see Mr. Cool in action:

BBC NEWS Americas US Senate approves stimulus plan



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