Bipartisanship Set Aside for Another Day

Just for the record, both houses passed the reconciled stimulus bill, and Obama should sign it into law next week. A few more Democrats came over in the House from the first time around, but the Senate was pretty much exactly the same. Appropriately, the Republicans wanted nothing to do with it, and that's fine with me. If the stimulus does anything like we all hope it will (except for the Republicans, of course), I'll be somewhat surprised if they pay much of a price. They certainly didn't after they held the line against Clinton's economic plan, which ended up bringing us extended expansion and turned deficit into surplus. In fact, they took over the House at the next election and didn't lose it until the surplus had long turned back into deficit.

But it seems like perhaps the Obama administration has learned a little something. They're not giving up on bipartisan outreach, but it won't be their primary focus. I'm not so draconian that I think Republicans should be cut off completely (OK, sometimes I am), but I certainly don't think that we should go out of our way to compromise and include them if they're not interested in any sort of reciprocal situation. Let's focus on getting things done rather than with whom we get them done.