{"id":330,"date":"2009-02-14T17:17:54","date_gmt":"2009-02-14T22:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/?p=330"},"modified":"2009-02-14T17:17:54","modified_gmt":"2009-02-14T22:17:54","slug":"a-major-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/","title":{"rendered":"A Major Milestone?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Stimulus bill passed and it is being called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20090214\/ap_on_go_pr_wh\/congress_stimulus_500\">a major milestone<\/a>\u201d for President Obama. But I do not see this as any significant effort. The simple fact was that a stimulus bill was going to pass as Republicans could not have stopped it. The best they could have done was influence it, but the Democrat&#8217;s response to any Republican input was \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollcall.com\/news\/31650-1.html\">we won the election.<\/a>\u201d Sure they wanted Republican support, but not if it meant Republicans had any real input on the end result.<\/p>\n<p>Nor did they need Republican support. The Democrats have a lock on the Congress, something Republicans have not had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.senate.gov\/pagelayout\/history\/one_item_and_teasers\/partydiv.htm\">in <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.senate.gov\/pagelayout\/history\/one_item_and_teasers\/partydiv.htm\">a <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.senate.gov\/pagelayout\/history\/one_item_and_teasers\/partydiv.htm\">100 years<\/a>. Neither did Clinton have this. In fact you have to go back to Carter to find the last President who had the luxury of being able to effectively ignore the other party.<\/p>\n<p>Yet with such a majority, and the opportunity it gives to a president to enact their programs and policies, Obama seems to have voluntarily stepped to the sidelines and let Pelosi and Reid handle the stimulus bill. He didn&#8217;t seem to care what was in the bill, as long as it was called a stimulus bill, and it was about $800 billion. Obama&#8217;s leadership was essentially little more than asking politicians to spend a huge amount of money. Getting politicians to spend money is not a significant accomplishment.<\/p>\n<p>This is a far cry from the leadership of previous presidents of both parties as very few had been in the position of Obama. To get their policies enacted into law took a lot of skill and work to craft a bill that met their goals and yet still had enough support to pass both the house and the senate. Obama&#8217;s leadership on the stimulus bill was akin to taking some children to a candy store, handing them a lot of money, and they taking credit when they were able to spend it. I am afraid that the end result will be not be that much different than for kids who have gorged themselves on candy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Stimulus bill passed and it is being called \u201ca major milestone\u201d for President Obama. But I do not see this as any significant effort. The simple fact was that a stimulus bill was going to pass as Republicans could not have stopped it. The best they could have done was influence it, but the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,28],"tags":[934,982,1091,1213],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-politics","tag-obama","tag-pelosi","tag-reid","tag-stimulus-bill"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Major Milestone? - Politics and Religion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Major Milestone? - Politics and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Stimulus bill passed and it is being called \u201ca major milestone\u201d for President Obama. But I do not see this as any significant effort. The simple fact was that a stimulus bill was going to pass as Republicans could not have stopped it. The best they could have done was influence it, but the [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Politics and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-14T22:17:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elgin Hushbeck\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elgin Hushbeck\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/\",\"name\":\"A Major Milestone? - Politics and Religion\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-02-14T22:17:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1e0462ceb31a6ae267de916fb1fc1e6b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Major Milestone?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Politics and Religion\",\"description\":\"Comments on Politics and Religion\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1e0462ceb31a6ae267de916fb1fc1e6b\",\"name\":\"Elgin Hushbeck\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/111d2d9a9a7ff4ed5376638ef5042b381a6987855b6398bfb2d91b1cf750d4fe?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/111d2d9a9a7ff4ed5376638ef5042b381a6987855b6398bfb2d91b1cf750d4fe?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Elgin Hushbeck\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Major Milestone? - Politics and Religion","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Major Milestone? - Politics and Religion","og_description":"The Stimulus bill passed and it is being called \u201ca major milestone\u201d for President Obama. But I do not see this as any significant effort. The simple fact was that a stimulus bill was going to pass as Republicans could not have stopped it. The best they could have done was influence it, but the [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/","og_site_name":"Politics and Religion","article_published_time":"2009-02-14T22:17:54+00:00","author":"Elgin Hushbeck","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Elgin Hushbeck","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/","url":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/","name":"A Major Milestone? - Politics and Religion","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-14T22:17:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1e0462ceb31a6ae267de916fb1fc1e6b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/a-major-milestone\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Major Milestone?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/","name":"Politics and Religion","description":"Comments on Politics and Religion","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1e0462ceb31a6ae267de916fb1fc1e6b","name":"Elgin Hushbeck","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/111d2d9a9a7ff4ed5376638ef5042b381a6987855b6398bfb2d91b1cf750d4fe?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/111d2d9a9a7ff4ed5376638ef5042b381a6987855b6398bfb2d91b1cf750d4fe?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Elgin Hushbeck"},"url":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hushbeck.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}