Stimulus mania

President Obama spent some time Tuesday meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill, trying to assuage their concerns about and objections to the massive spending that is the centerpiece of his $825 billion stimulus package.

Politico has this great article about how, even though the men and women on each side played nicely and used their manners, Obama and his ideological opposites just couldn't find common ground.

Well, that's not exactly true. They did find some common ground, and Obama addressed it before he had even arrived on the Hill: He sent word to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi through U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) that she could forget her grand idea about packing $200 million in contraceptive funding into the stimulus bill.

The speaker is, by all accounts, a heroine to abortion-rights activists, and she figured she'd take her newfound expanded majority out for a spin. She even appeared on ABC News to defend the contraceptive funding as stimulative.

What a dope.

Pelosi may be the speaker, but she's obviously clueless when it comes to tactical politics. Here was the new Democratic president, was set to square off with Republicans in the Senate over his most important initiative yet. The GOP was on its heels, struggling to find a message; they didn't like the big spending, of course, but they didn't have a handle on any tangible examples to lend heft to their opposition.

Enter Pelosi with a gift for the GOP.

In the contraceptive plan, Republicans found an easily communicable rallying point. Here was an example, they said, of wasteful and inappropriate spending: What were Democrats doing inserting money that wouldn't create jobs or stimulate the economy into a bill that is supposed to create jobs and stimulate the economy?

Message delivered. Americans began wondering whether Obama's stimulus package was beginning to go the way of the ill-fated and basically useless TARP program.

So Obama, on his way to meet with Republicans and anxious to show that he's serious about listening to their concerns, picked up the phone and sent a message to the ambitious but reckless speaker: Knock it off. Forget about the contraception provision. And for goodness' sake, please don't "help" me anymore.

Well, maybe not quite in those words. But that was the gist.

As for the bipartisan summit that followed, the result was probably a foregone conclusion: Obama wouldn't budge on plans to give all working Americans, even those who don't pay taxes, a tax cut, and Republicans politely explained that they just can't support the president's plan ...

... But it was nice of him to ask.

When it was over, the president and the Republicans emerged -- though not together -- and expressed their respect for one another while noting the ideological divides that will mark their relationship throughout the next four years. And that's where the real news was made.

All in all, the meeting didn't accomplish much in terms of shaping the stimulus package itself. But it was an important opportunity for the new president and his political foes to feel each other out, get a handle of sorts on what to expect from each other.

... And Obama began to lay critical groundwork for how he will pursue future initiatives, like health care reform, in Congress.

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