Despair

I am beginning to despair as to the outcome of the much needed stimulus that Obama is trying to put together. Steve at YDD points us at an article by Chris Hedges that is not very comforting but really is a must read. From my limited perspective is seems that the GOP has decided that barring a new massive terrorist attack or a complete failure of the Obama administration their hopes of political revival are lost. Krugman as usual, hits the nail on the head.

You see, this isn’t a brainstorming session — it’s a collision of fundamentally incompatible world views. If one thing is clear from the stimulus debate, it’s that the two parties have utterly different economic doctrines. Democrats believe in something more or less like standard textbook macroeconomics; Republicans believe in a doctrine under which tax cuts are the universal elixir, and government spending is almost always bad.

Obama may be able to get a few Republican Senators to go along with his plan; or he can get a lot of Republican votes by, in effect, becoming a Republican. There is no middle ground.

It sure looks like a worse case scenario developing. The GOP is going to compromise the stimulus to the point where it isn't.