The Right And The Stimulus

The biggest error, I think, was in declaring that the principle of fiscal loosening in the jaws of a brutal downdraft in demand was flawed. It isn't, for the reasons Bruce Bartlett and even Jonah Goldberg provide. Jonah was even able to cough up the following:

The disconnect between their past actions and the requirements of the present crisis lend credibility to the charge that Republicans are just being petulant and partisan.

What the GOP needed to do was offer a stimulus plan as big as the Democrats' but more immediate, and without the downpayments on health, the environment and education that Pelosi secured. My guess is that if they'd done that from the get-go and negotiated with Obama in good faith, they might have improved the package. But the politics of Limbaugh means they couldn't - because it would have implied a serious alliance with a new president in very tough times. They put party before country and wounded both. Like much of their record for the past decade.