You can just stop right there. The Senate is not the House. A whole lot of Republicans in the Senate have been voting for most of the bills that have come up with administration approval. In fact, every single Senate Republican voted for the DTV delay. The vast majority of the House Republicans voted against it. On the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, 5/41 Republicans voted for it in the Senate. 3/178 in the House. You simply can’t assume that the two houses will act at all similarly. They don’t, and they’re explicitly designed not to do so. Statistics from here
I think that the thing at the root of the Republican response is fear that he will be another FDR, and usher in a whole generation of Democratic, liberal rule. Hoover was torn between the need to do something and the old orthodoxy of cutting spending and balancing the budget. Obama is a pragmatist if anything. Contrast that to the Republican answer of more yawn tax cuts.
We also know a lot more about how the economy works than they did back then.
Well most of our biggest trade partners are expressing concern and he hasn’t been President for more than two weeks.
China, Canada, Europe and Russia have all made mention of the dangers of American protectionism at this juncture.
I think the point made in one of the articles I posted was good in that while buying foreign steel will stimulate foreign nations, their stimulus projects will use American trade goods.
If in 2010 Americans believe the plan worked, and the Republicans unanimously oppose it, it isn’t Democrats who will be facing doom. I guarantee that a majority of voters would prefer a revitalized economy and some pork to no action at all. And the argument that “I voted no because I would have voted for something even better” pretty much never flies.
The OP is rather melodramatic and basically false IMO. First of all I doubt too many voters in 2010 will bother at all about who voted for the plan and who didn’t. If the economy is in decent shape Obama will be popular and the Democrats will probably retain power. The same goes for 2012. And voters don’t expect perfection in terms of the individual components of the stimulus either; they will mainly look at the economy as a whole.
So what is the likely path of the economy. I happen to think that because of the massive monetary and fiscal stimulus it will recover more quickly than expected: sometime in the second half of this year. I could be wrong though and the economy could take till 2010 to recover it which it will be pretty tight for the Democrats in the mid-term election.
The other issue is what kind of recovery; will it be like the “jobless recovery” of the early 90’s. That is possible though I think things will probably be OK by 2012. The bottom line : I don’t think Obama has too much to worry but it will be touch and go for the Congressional Dems. Still the Republicans are in such disarray that it’s hard to see them actually regain their majority even if the recovery is slow.