Minor Differences

I heard yesterday that Obama was quoted as saying that Republicans and Democrats agree on the need of a quick stimulus and the differences in their positions are relatively minor. I assume this means in the interest of expediency Obama will agree to the Republican plan.

While I'm on the subject, Katie Couric, in a fashion that seems to be fairly typical of big media, states that "The President went up to the Hill to personally appeal to Republicans already, what more can he do?" He could try actually compromising. The House accepted no amendments to the porkapalousa that they're trying to pass off as a stimulus package. We can imagine Walmart having meetings with Union leaders and keeping their current stance of doing virtually anything to keep unions out of Walmart. Surely the Unions would be happy with them reaching out like that, what more could Walmart do?

It has seemed to me for years that calls for "bipartisanship" or "compromise" in Washington generally mean "the other side should agree with me" and not "I'm willing to compromise with the other side." I think this is especially true of Democrats, but that could be bias. Certainly it is quite clearly true of the current circumstance. Obama may think the differences between Republican positions and his own are fairly minor, but I'll give sizable odds that he doesn't urge Democrats to support a bill authored by Mike Pence.