Big Week Ahead for President Obama
There is little doubt now that the coming week will be a very important one for the nascent Obama Presidency. On Monday he takes to the road, visiting Indiana and Florida, and speaks to the nation. Also on Monday Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will offer what now appears to be an outline, or sketch, of the Administration's plan to attack the financial crisis, beginning what will be a very important debate about this part of the emerging recovery plan. Among the other things we are hoping for is a major initiative to keep people in their homes.
Also up this week will be the attempt for the Senate and House to reconcile their different stimulus bills into one, and hit the deadline of getting the bill signed by President's day weekend. Given news reports this morning about the late-night Senate deal, I don't know how easy this is going to be.
One of the most interesting and important things to watch this week is how the Senate and House come together and "reconcile." The internal dynamics of these two chambers are very different. The bills that emerged from each chamber are different. Will the path forward for future legislation be what we saw with the stimulus - seperate tracks for each chamber - or will the White House and Congressional leadership attempt to prenegotiate the big ones and try to reach a broad outline of a deal that can get through both chambers will little alteration? How this stimulus bill comes together this week will be a big big test of the ability of the two chambers to reconcile their very different internal politics.
The Republicans. We learned a lot about them these last few weeks. Their great test will be whether they can do more than be angry that they are not in power anymore. The signs so far are not so good. For the good of the nation we need the Republican Party to become a responsibile partner in cleaning up the incredible mess they left us all in. I think the way The President began to remind the American people of the GOP's role in bringing about the troubles we now face was important - and may be his biggest weapon in bringing them to the table in the many legislative battles ahead (see this Washington Post news story on what could be a fatal political scandal for the new RNC Chairman, Michael Steele).
Oh, and not to be forgotten, the President signed into law a bill this week that will bring health insurance and good medical care to millions of children who do not have it today. It was a powerful early signal that the new government can bring people together to tackle our common challenges. And for those of us optimistic about fixing our broken immigration system this year, that the provision to extend health insurance coverage to all legal immigrant children passed, over initial GOP opposition, is a good sign that reasonable people in both parties can come together and make progress on a broader immigration reform package this year.
While there are pieces of the package we could do without, the emerging economic recovery plan is a very responsible and serious attempt to address the economic challenges of our time, and it contains many provisions long argued for by NDN. President Obama and his team should be pleased with where things stand now - on their first major initiative they've shown far-sightedness, political dexterity and resolve. But the next few days are very important, and will tell us much about our ability to meet the challenges ahead.
Sat 10pm Update - The NYTimes has a good piece running in the Sunday paper looking at the differences between the Senate and House bills.
- Simon Rosenberg's blog
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