I remain an agnostic as to whether the stimulus bill will actually solve our economic problems, distrusting partisans on either side who are convinced either that it will or will not work. There is simply no way to prove either claim, but the Republican House does give a greater appearance of partisanship in their lock step opposition. Republican Senators have also voiced objection, and from their opposition one might think that the Republicans consider the majority of the proposed spending to be wasteful.
The Republicans have released a long list of items in the Senate stimulus bill which they consider wasteful. I’m sure that there are counter arguments in defense of some of these, and most likely the Republicans are right about others. Steve Benen has totaled the items that the Republicans object to and finds that they only object to 2% of the spending. This sounds like a remarkable amount of agreement.
If the items on their list are all that is stopping the Republicans from complete agreement with the stimulus bill, it should be very easy to reach a compromise. Considering the severity of our economic problems, if the Republicans agree with 98% of what the Democrats propose it is hard to imagine any reason for them to vote against the plan, especially if the Democrats grant some concessions on the disputed 2%.
