Washington Post: Stimulus Plan Meets More GOP Resistance

Just days after taking office vowing to end the political era of “petty grievances,” President Obama ran into mounting GOP opposition yesterday to an economic stimulus plan that he had hoped would receive broad bipartisan support.

Republicans accused Democrats of abandoning the new president’s pledge, ignoring his call for bipartisan comity and shutting them out of the process by writing the $850 billion legislation. The first drafts of the plan would result in more spending on favored Democratic agenda items, such as federal funding of the arts, they said, but would do little to stimulate the ailing economy.

The GOP’s shrunken numbers, particularly in the Senate, will make it difficult for Republicans to stop the stimulus bill, but the growing GOP doubts mean that Obama’s first major initiative could be passed on a largely party-line vote — little different from the past 16 years of partisan sniping in the Clinton and Bush eras.

“Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters yesterday, saying Republicans were not being realistic in their expectations.

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Posted in * Economics, Politics, Economy, The Fiscal Stimulus Package of 2009

6 comments on “Washington Post: Stimulus Plan Meets More GOP Resistance

  1. Terry Chapman says:

    Only the Wash Post could be so slanted and childish as to label the a discussion on how best to resuce the nation with an $850bln spending plan as “petty grievances”.

  2. palagious says:

    I guess Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have to worry as much as Obama does about re-election.

  3. Branford says:

    When it’s shown that much of the money is going to those politically connected, I think the GOP should resist all the more.

  4. Sarah1 says:

    Heh.

    I love the lines from Pelosi. Something that would have been squealed about bloody murder from the MSM from four years ago.

  5. Bill Cavanaugh says:

    As the immortal Pete Townshend says, “Meet the new Boss, same as the old Boss”

  6. Harvey says:

    Have we not already heard disapproving murmus from the Democratic side of the aisle as well as the voices from the Republican side? Let’s slow down here and do some hard thinking before we let loose of 800 BILLION or more dollars. We can even track the 300 passed over to the banks – they will not let us do it.