The Obama Landscape

One of the things that's hard to figure out is the layout of the American political landscape as the Obama administration takes shape.

Here's a hint: one question is what the Obama administration is going to do when the Republicans reject compromise on the economic stimulus package.

The first weeks of the Obama administration will be probably dominated by the efforts to pass a large-scale stimulus package to counter the effects of the deepening recession.

Obama laid out the general contours of the stimulus package again today. It will be worth close to $800 billion with about 60% new spending and 40% tax cuts and the new spending will be oriented toward education, health care, alternative energy, and infrastructure spending. Thus, the new spending is going to be a vehicle through which the Obama administration seeks to enact longstanding Democratic domestic policy priorities.

Although Obama proposed middle-class tax cuts during the campaign, the prominence of tax cuts in the mix is already seen as a compromise gesture toward Republicans.

But the Republicans are going to reject the compromise. The Republicans can accept the tax cuts, but they will reject the new government spending. Republican spokespeople already have their arguments lined up. The Republicans claim that large scale government spending didn't work during the Great Depression and it won't work now. They'll also claim that Obama is promoting "hysteria" about the economy and that the current recession doesn't require such drastic remedies. Finally, the Republicans are setting themselves up to argue that Congress isn't giving the stimulus package the detailed committee consideration that it needs.

But the bottom line is that any compromise with the Obama administration on government spending will be unacceptable to conservative activists. The hard right that would rather have a depression than more large-scale government spending. As a result, Mitch McConnell will refuse compromise and do everything in his power to scuttle the stimulus package.

So, the question is what will the Obama administration do when it becomes clear that the Republicans will be recalcitrant?

Will they totally cave and abandon the spending programs in favor of the massive tax cuts that the Republicans want? That's what the Democratic Congressional leadership did on Iraq war funding. They gave Bush everything he wanted without condition.

Or will they mostly cave and go for a token program of government "investments" in a package largely devoted to tax cuts? That's what the Democrats did on warrantless wiretapping and telecom immunity legislation last year and Obama himself went along with it. The Democratic leadership got very little of what they wanted while mostly giving away the store on telecom immunity. Even the Republicans were surprised.

Or will Obama and the Democratic leadership call out the Republicans for refusing to do what's necessary in the face of a rapidly deteriorating economy and fight them?

This is what it's going to get down too. Barack Obama has a strong instinct for bipartisanship and compromise. The Republicans have just as strong an instinct for rejecting compromise.

Something will have to give.