Senate threatens to meddle with tax rebates

Prediction: the Senate will back down. Nobody benefits politically from headlines like "Senate May Scuttle Stimulus," particularly not when the public will feel that it has essentially already been promised $1,200 per couple. The Republicans need this to pass, because they'll be the ones primarily blamed for a recession, and they need the voters to think they tried to do something to stop it. And the Democrats need to avoid painting themselves into a corner where they're the "obstructionists" who prevented Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public from getting a $1,200 check in the mail. This is one issue where both parties in both houses will find some way to work together, in relatively short order.

Comments

[Sandy Underpants]

The tax rebate is bullcrap because I don't get anything so who cares.

Now lets talk about something important like last nights debate. Did anyone else get confused as to whether that was a debate or a Mitt Romney speech? I was watching the debate during commercials for Celebrity Apprentice and it was freakin Mitt Romney all night long. And after CA ended another 30 minutes of Mitt Romney.

Washington is broken folks. We're gonna fix it. I'm not a robot.

I was glazed over with this guys voice and the way he can say nothing for so long, you just get lulled.

Tim Russert should've replaced Ron Paul with a cardboard cut-out of Ron Paul to save him the time of standing up there and not getting any questions. When Huckabee drops out he should go into comedy. I forsee GOMER PILE the movie in his future. Well GoooOooOOoOOOLLLllLlY!!

[Andrew]

The Republicans need this to pass, because they'll be the ones primarily blamed for a recession....

I'm curious as to what your logic is for this snap judgment.

[Brendan Loy]

My logic is as follows:

Did the Democratic Congress in 1992 get blamed for that recession, or did President Bush?

People don't blame Congresses for recessions. They blame presidents.

(Of course, neither Congresses nor presidents are, as a rule, actually to blame for recessions, but that's a separate issue.)

[Brian Foster]

Hmm......

If "People don't blame Congresses for recessions," then why would Republicans in Congress "be the ones primarily blamed for a recession"?

[Mike]

I'd say it's primarily because people often take out their anger at a lame duck/recently departed President on the members of Congress who share his political party.

[Brendan Loy]

Brian, when I said "the Republicans need this to pass," I was talking about the national party generally, not Republicans in Congress specifically. I was thinking more of the GOP presidential candidate than individual members of Congress, many of whom are protected by ironclad gerrymandering anyway. You and I can parse the distinctions between the various moving parts within each party and each branch of government, but the average voter is just going to pick a "side" to blame -- or possibly just blame all the "bums," meaning incumbents generally. In either case, there is no political benefit whatsoever for either the Democrats or the Republicans to obstruct this.

[Andrew]

"Ironclad gerrymandering" didn't prevent the GOP from getting their asses handed to them in the 2006 election.

I agree that people tend to blame (or give credit to) presidents more than the Congress for economic performance. However, I also wouldn't be surprised if the voters see it like this: Bush and GOP Congress = good economy, good times; Bush and Democratic Congress = looming recession, bad times. What was the change? And who's the lame duck?