S.C.'s GOP congressmen jump off the stimulus train

Today's editorial analyzes the decision by four GOP S.C. congressman to oppose a stimulus bill that contains good things for South Carolina:

The Republican members of the S.C. congressional delegation profess to love the potential benefits to South Carolina of an economic stimulus package. Nonetheless, all four Republican House delegation members, including U.S. Rep. Henry Brown, our local guy, and U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, who reportedly has gubernatorial aspirations, voted against the $819 billion stimulus plan Wednesday.

Is this a case of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good? That's the time-honored practice of finding fault with parts of a bill in order to avoid supporting the whole. The bill does contain provisions that shouldn't - and likely won't - be part of the final package that Congress sends to President Obama. But some stuff in the bill (such as road and bridge money for our infrastructure-hungry state) would benefit the home folks.

Or did Brown, Barrett and S.C. Republican Reps. Joe Wilson and Bob Inglis decide that party solidarity matters more - for now - than signaling to constituents that help with jobs creation and economy rebuilding is on the way, and that they're darned happy about that? This seems the better guess.

GOP Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia worked relentlessly to keep every House Republican in the anti-Obama fold. It's hard to be bipartisan in the face of such leadership pressure.

The Republican minority leadership seems more interested right now in laying the groundwork for a return to the majority in two or four years than in accepting Obama's offer of bipartisanship. Whether the stimulus is the right vehicle for drawing distinctions against Obama and the Democrats is yet to be determined.

No good Republican, it's true, dares embrace too warmly the government-program approach to economic recovery. Republicans are supposed to believe in smaller government and personal responsibility and empowerment - the emphases of the stimulus alternative that House Republicans offered.

But Brown and Barrett, among the other Republicans who survived the 2006 and 2008 elections, were part of the Republican majority that oversaw the largest expansion in federal domestic spending, in inflation-adjusted dollars, since the administration of Lyndon Johnson. Not enough time has passed for the people to forget GOP overspending - or to forget that the seeds of economic collapse were sown on the Republicans' watch.

Thus does it seem that our S.C. Republican delegation, in the name of party solidarity, has passed up the chance to snag a share of the credit for the stimulus package that eventually passes. Their next - and only - chance to get back on a train that has left the station and is gaining speed will come in perhaps a month, when the stimulus bill, as worked over in the U.S. Senate and negotiated in conference committee, returns to the House floor.

With luck and hard work by S.C. Senate Republicans Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, that compromise bill will be easier to swallow than the Democratic bill that passed on Wednesday. The usual pattern with such legislation is that the cooler, more deliberative style of the Senate massages a rough House measure into a thing of beauty - or at least into a thing that legislative majorities, as well as the president, can support.

The hope must be that Brown, Barrett, Wilson and Inglis are less partisan - and less picky - when the final package returns to the House. Their constituents are desperate for the job- and hope-killing economic unraveling to end, and expect their elected representatives to be part of the solution - even if the solution isn't totally to their liking.

Comments?

Is this a case of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good? That's the time-honored practice of finding fault with parts of a bill in order to avoid supporting the whole. The bill does contain provisions that shouldn't - and likely won't - be part of the final package that Congress sends to President Obama. But some stuff in the bill (such as road and bridge money for our infrastructure-hungry state) would benefit the home folks.

Or did Brown, Barrett and S.C. Republican Reps. Joe Wilson and Bob Inglis decide that party solidarity matters more - for now - than signaling to constituents that help with jobs creation and economy rebuilding is on the way, and that they're darned happy about that? This seems the better guess.

GOP Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia worked relentlessly to keep every House Republican in the anti-Obama fold. It's hard to be bipartisan in the face of such leadership pressure.

The Republican minority leadership seems more interested right now in laying the groundwork for a return to the majority in two or four years than in accepting Obama's offer of bipartisanship. Whether the stimulus is the right vehicle for drawing distinctions against Obama and the Democrats is yet to be determined.

No good Republican, it's true, dares embrace too warmly the government-program approach to economic recovery. Republicans are supposed to believe in smaller government and personal responsibility and empowerment - the emphases of the stimulus alternative that House Republicans offered.

But Brown and Barrett, among the other Republicans who survived the 2006 and 2008 elections, were part of the Republican majority that oversaw the largest expansion in federal domestic spending, in inflation-adjusted dollars, since the administration of Lyndon Johnson. Not enough time has passed for the people to forget GOP overspending - or to forget that the seeds of economic collapse were sown on the Republicans' watch.

Thus does it seem that our S.C. Republican delegation, in the name of party solidarity, has passed up the chance to snag a share of the credit for the stimulus package that eventually passes. Their next - and only - chance to get back on a train that has left the station and is gaining speed will come in perhaps a month, when the stimulus bill, as worked over in the U.S. Senate and negotiated in conference committee, returns to the House floor.

With luck and hard work by S.C. Senate Republicans Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, that compromise bill will be easier to swallow than the Democratic bill that passed on Wednesday. The usual pattern with such legislation is that the cooler, more deliberative style of the Senate massages a rough House measure into a thing of beauty - or at least into a thing that legislative majorities, as well as the president, can support.

The hope must be that Brown, Barrett, Wilson and Inglis are less partisan - and less picky - when the final package returns to the House. Their constituents are desperate for the job- and hope-killing economic unraveling to end, and expect their elected representatives to be part of the solution - even if the solution isn't totally to their liking.

Comments?