Careful With That Axe Eugene

Although I would guess that the chances are still pretty high that the horrible, misguided "stimulus" bill will still pass, the voting math in the Senate just got more complicated with Gregg's withdrawal.  It would appear from his withdrawal statement that Gregg is not a supporter of the bill, so he is not likely to vote for it.  Ted Kennedy is apparently returning to Florida and will not be present to vote.  That means that Reid only has 60 votes with the three Republicans he has managed to swing over to his side and all three of them have said that they do not want to be casting the deciding vote.  Could one of them waver and drop their support?  Possibly, but I wouldn't bet the ranch on it.

If this were to happen, however, the Republicans could put themselves into a very sticky predicament.  On the one hand, they would have stopped an absolutely awful bill from being pushed through Congress in a very unorthodox and secretive way.  The blow to Obama would be immense (albeit self-inflicted) and certainly politically satisfying, but the politically satisfying is often bad politics.  That's because, on the other hand, Republicans would now be stuck with the label of having obstructed "action."  The President has made a cartoon of the opposition, pretending that Republicans just want a lot of tax cuts and never want to spend a dime and that plays well in many places.  If the Republicans just stop the bill and do nothing, they will have won the battle, but lost the war.

The key would be to offer up a realistic alternative and try to start picking off Blue Dog Democrats.  That would be an enormous coup.  I think the best alternative would be the introduction of a much, much smaller spending bill with all of the cash being deployed in 2009.  Such a bill could also include a short-term tax break, such as the payroll tax holiday, that has broad support. The longer-term spending and infrastructure projects would then go through the normal appropriations process where the Republicans would be well-advised to make some compromises and support a few projects that they might not agree with ideologically, but which will attract some Democratic supporters.

I find the whole scenario very unlikely, but if the Republicans do get into a position to block this train wreck of a bill, they are in serious danger of overplaying what is currently a winning hand.