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Let's cut to the chase:
Pres. Obama does not need a single Republican vote to make this bill happen.
In other words, he could sign it next week if the Senate Dems follow House Dems and send a bill to his desk.
Pres. Obama could hold a PR celebration and sign it!
He could give a big speech and tell the country that "hope and change" are finally here. He can bring a busload of "yes we can" screamers and say that this is "the day that the planet started to heal".
Why in the world does he want Republican votes?
The answer is that Pres Obama and the Dems need political cover.
Better than that, they want to share the bad news that will come later this summer and specially 2010. Oddly enough, they don't want to "own" this bill at all!
The second answer is that there are bigger "fishes to fry" down the road.
Pres Obama and the Dems will have to make unbelievable difficult choices later this year.
I'm talking about the auto industry bailout.
Who is going to tell the "madly in love with Obama" labor unions that we can't afford to bail them out?
I'm talking about California.
Who is going tell the "madly in love with Obama" voters of California that we don't have the money to bail out states?
Unfortunately for Pres Obama and the Dems, the House Republicans did not vote for this thing called a "stimulus" bill.
Why? Because many of us do not think that this is a stimulus bill.
The House Republicans understand that you can't spend a trillion dollars and drive budget deficits to 7 or 8% of GDP.
I saw that an economist is saying that we may have deficits of up to 10% of GDP next year.
We have never been over 6% of GDP! See the charts!
Sorry. You can't have deficits like that and prevent an outbreak of inflation.
Dick Morris is very pessimistic about the US economy in 2010:
"In the seven years beetween 2000 and 2007, the money supply rose from $600 billion to $800 billion.
In 2008, alone, it more than doubled from $800 billion to $1.7 trillion!
We cannot sustain this level of increase in the money supply without having way too much money chasing way too few goods and services, sending prices up into double digit inflation.
While the economy is in shell shock, at the moment, we face deflation.
But once it begins to come back and the dollars come out of hiding, we will find the resulting inflation intractible and very difficult to cure."
Morris may be wrong. It may not get as bad as he is prediciting.
However, Morris is right in warning us about inflation.
Bottom line: We can not afford to go where this bill wants to take us!
P.S. Here is the mother of all ironies.
The Dems have spent the last few years blasting the Bush deficits.
As you can see from the graph above, Bush's deficits never exceeded 4% of GDP. In fact, they were between 2-3% of GDP for much of his presidency!
Wonder how long before we start yearning for those wonderful days of yesteryear? When will we hear about those responsible Bush deficits of 3% of GDP rather than the irresponsible Obama deficits of 10% of GDP?
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