Action v. Inaction
Thursday night last week, as the stimulus bill was winding its way to final form, my wife and I drove to Union Station, in the heart of St. Louis City, to pick up our son. He was headed into town via bus for a get-together with our extended family.
We arrived at Union Station two hours prior to our son’s scheduled arrival, having decided to enjoy an early Valentine’s Day dinner, knowing that our time Saturday would be superceded by family time. As we walked through the historic St. Louis landmark on our way to the restaurant, we passed one dark, empty store after another. It wasn’t just that these stores were closed. They were vacant. Cleaned out. Abandoned. Five short months earlier, every one of them had been filled. Granted, a few brave entrepreneurs were hanging on, peddling merchandise to a painfully thin crowd. But they were the exceptions, insufficient to muffle the sound of our echoing steps.
Some will argue that St. Louis has its own, unique set of challenges; that it is still paying the price for its civic leaders’ decision, more than a century ago, to favor river boats over railcars. Chicago’s civic leaders made the opposite choice and their city flourished while St. Louis stumbled — and never quite recovered.
Any student of St. Louis/Chicago history recognizes the merits of that argument. However, in the last few years, the city of St. Louis had been making a turnaround, with new developments and an influx of new inhabitants, young and old alike, who for various reasons decided to move back into the urban core from the suburban fringes. Still, there stood Union Station last week, virtually empty. Hence, my wife and I (non-experts that we are) convinced each other that the blight we encountered could not be entirely blamed on St. Louis’ ancient history. At least some of it, we decided, must be the result of far more recent history and its pervasive economic disorder.
In turn, that experience and others have persuaded us that, while the stimulus bill President Obama is scheduled to sign tomorrow in Denver might not be a panacea for what ails the country, the mere effort to construct and pass it is better than doing nothing; that, faced with deteriorating circumstances, action (even errant action) is surely a better choice than no action at all.
A similar conclusion, I assume, is what drove Sens. Snowe, Collins, and Specter to negotiate for modifications to the stimulus bill in exchange for their support. And while I don’t begrudge the remainder of the Republican Caucus their bullish opposition, I have to wonder — had they erred more on the side of action v. inaction; had they walked with my wife and I through St. Louis’ Union Station last week; had they been more like Snowe, Collins, and Specter than the cartoon characters portrayed by Dan Aykroyd and friends on SNL — what other modficiations to the final bill they might have secured.
Based on some quick math — using data on this page and this page at ProPublica — the three rogue Republican senators were able to negotiate a 5.2 percent decrease in the overall cost of the bill (compared to the original House version), while increasing the aggregate for infrastructure and tax cuts (two Republican favorites) by nearly 10 percent. So again, I have to ask: How much improvement to those “Republican goals” could the GOP caucus have achieved, if they had rolled up their sleeves and come to the table in a sincere attempt to negotiate rather than deciding that the most productive “action” was, in an analogy suggested by Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX), to “declare jihad on Obama”?
Did the bulk of Republicans just vote for river boats over railcars?
14 Responses to “Action v. Inaction”
So again, I have to ask: How much improvement to those “Republican goals” could the R caucus have achieved, if they had rolled up their sleeves and come to the table in a sincere attempt to negotiate rather than deciding that the most productive “action” was to, in Andrew Sullivan’s words, “declare jihad on Obama”?
Well is this not what the Dems did to the Bush Administration as they accused him of every conceivable thing under the sun for 5 years? The difference this time is instead of a 51-48 majority the dems have essentially a 58-41 majority so the gop has to only send out a scape goat every so often to get things done and to tag everything to the Democrats while they bide their time. Collins, Snowe etc. were the scapegoats this time. Help the dems get the bill passed so it DOES go out and help the country while the rest of the GOP remains locked down.
JUST as the Democrats remained locked down on voting Iraq resolutions. Just as the democrats could not even pass an immigration bill before “Harry Reid forced and up or down vote on it so as he put it “they could get back to passing resolutions on Iraq.”
Lets not be naive here. The fact that there were 4 republicans put forth to vote on this was no accident.
Just as the democrats put forth Our good buddy Hagel to be the face of the antiwar movement within the Dem party.
Right or wrong? It is what it is.
As for the House situation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office.
In reaction, the House Republican leadership is sending a letter today to Pelosi to object to changes to House Rules this week that would bar Republicans from offering alternative bills, amendments to Democrat bills or even the guarantee of open debate accessible by motions to recommit for any piece of legislation during the entire 111th Congress. These procedural abuses, as outlined in the below letter obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, would also include the repeal of six-year limit for committee chairmen and other House Rules reform measures enacted in 1995 as part of the Contract with America.
This is not spin. This is actually what happened. The first shot was fired by the Democrats before Obama had a chance to take office.
“Did the bulk of Republicans just vote for river boats over rail cars?”
No, Pete. They just voted against a mess and made a statement that they shouldn't be ignored. Plus there's the usual posturing by so many of them, trying to profess fiscal responsibility, while no doubt they did hear from many constituents who are upset about the bill, which was a mess. In the broader context, as messy as this bill was, it was passed, the Dems made their point they rule Washington, and this was probably on Obama's mind no matter how sloppy this bill is (and how ineffective or wasteful so much of it will prove to be).
Bear in mind the City is a Blue Nation pocket extraordinaire, which is a huge handicap. But overall, the place looks better than many others.
I miss St. Louis and hope it does better sometime soon. That includes in the City itself, which looks in places to be in good shape, but could still stand some long-overdue improvements. In an infrastructure effort, or even through aid to states, for example, substandard school buildings in the City could be remodeled or replaced, and where to this day there still may not be air conditioning, things like that remedied. (The same is true for places throughout the City where there may still be lead paint present. Both the lead paint and the lack of air conditioning was a problem I recall when I lived near the City.) Among items that could go into any long-term-oriented “infrastructure plus” bill in addition to weatherproofing and insulation and window replacement, which ordinarily makes people think of winter heating, I don't see why a one-shot effort to provide air conditioners to those who need them (at least limited to government facilities and programs; the programs could distribute these to people who need them in addition to providing electric-bill assistance) is not out of line, given how expansive the efforts by Washington are envisioned by so many. In the case of air conditioning, lives would be saved.
Long-term prospects for St. Louis, I hope are high. Not just for biotech (something that's fought by many on the Monsanto-hating Left but which is a big long-term prospect, such as in health care) or as a communications center, but as an alternative Midwestern location for other industry, offering a central location throughout the USA's area and population that competes with Kansas City. I'd like to return there someday.
Downtown's multi-colored lights of all kinds and snazzy structures here and there (including Alberici's site off I-170) make me think there's still life in that city.
“Some will argue that St. Louis has its own, unique set of challenges; that it is still paying the price for its civic leaders’ decision, more than a century ago, to favor river boats over railcars. Chicago’s civic leaders made the opposite choice and their city flourished while St. Louis stumbled — and never quite recovered.”
St. Louis just likes making those [in]famous decisions.
Joseph McCoy visited St. Louis railroad officials to ask about an idea he had, about shipping cattle from the Plains eastward, and was rebuffed — even told he had no cattle and he never would. McCoy got a railroad to ship Texas-fed cattle from Kansas to Chicago instead.
I visited Union Station in St Louis several years ago and anyone would have realized that it was a doomed business model. It was offering chain restaurants and naitonal chain stores to tourists who could visit the same restaurants and the same stores in dozens of other cities. The problem with cities is that they do not realize that part of their charm should be in being unique from other cities. When everyone has a Hooters, Cheesecake factor, and Hardrock Cafe, they are doomed to fail.
Also, St Louis suffers from the problem in that the wealth is in the suburbs not the downtown area. St Louis also suffers from bad polticial leadership today and not just 100 years ago.
The differences are too ideological to bridged over with compromises. Note that the GOP bills were of a COMPLETELY different character than the Democratic bills. They were almost entirely tax cuts with a little bit for infrastructure spending and defense spending. A handful of Republicans were probably whipped into line unwillingly – like Joseph Cao – but most are simply ideologically opposed to the Democratic concept.
Snowe, Specter and Collins are simply a different breed than most Republicans. They represent an old Yankee Republicanism – or Rockefeller Republicanism – that died out nationally. I suspect that you were a similar sort. To them, the Democratic concept was a good one – even if it had to be tweeked and cleaned up a bit.
I was just at Union Station last week, while visiting StL on business. It is similar to other cities' attempts, but at this point it is a shell of a place, with major anchors (Marriott, Hard Rock Cafe), but failing storefronts and kiosks. It's the economy of the times and of the place. Downtown St Louis is hollow. To blame a business model is to gloss over deeper issues. Visit Union Station in DC (admittedly unfair comparison), or even the area around the station in Richmond VA to see a similar model in action, but with infrastructure that supports the model. In St Louis, the ingredients are there, but poorly integrated and managed.
Union Station is no worse than any other central-city “mall” project. The problem to me isn't the project but that the location is in an old central city, and so isn't thriving, any more than nearly any other central city has been, on a downward run since World War II (S-D knows this). What gripe I have about Union Station is that the railroad terminus part of the station (its reason for being) has been devoted to other uses, leaving Amtrak to rely on a homely gritty-city industrial site for its station instead. Maybe someday Union Station can become part of Amtrak or its successor someday, be it regional or nation-wide long-distance rail (the latter unsuitable for high-speed rail because of distances and low population levels).
St. Louis is a fine mid-sized, or even right-sized, metro area (the equivalent of a mid-sized state), large enough to have a “critical mass” and to offer everything one would want in a metro area, while being still human-scale for the most part as far as overall size and level of population go. This place (I chuckle and call it “Yugosibirsk” because of its location in our open continental interior), where the Midwest meets the South (it's a Southern city that became Yankee-fied in the 1800s), is in a perfect location relative to the rest of central and eastern North America. (And for recreation and scenery the Ozarks are right in the metro area's back yard.)
“The problem with cities is that they do not realize that part of their charm should be in being unique from other cities. “
Super D, I lived in an inner-ring suburb in STL metro area that put me one mile from the following thriving urban area that has this kind of unique charm you're thinking of. It's a perfect thriving urban Eastern-style neighborhoood. In addition to enjoying four seasons and the world's greatest deciduous forest (which I've said should make a naturalist out of anybody), being near this neighborhood was something that made me, who grew up in California, what I refer to as becoming “Easternized”.
(NOTE: This neighborhood is ready to have a motel built near or over the district's large municipal parking garage! Or turn an existing building into such a motel.)
http://www.ucityloop.com/
http://visittheloop.com/
I miss the Loop, I miss the colorful springs as well as the autumns, I miss the fireflies, I miss my song bird buddies…(Hey, Pete, while the trees are still dormant, take a look — have you ever noticed how many bird nests are in the trees there?)
I'm thinking the GOP didn't want any concessions made to them in this Bill. Sounds crazy eh? Well. they'll take a tax-cut handout whatever the reason. The are after all the GOP..
Why didn't they want part of that Bill? I don't know. A nagging thought tugs at my mind that tells me they may actually stoop to sabotaging the economy and making a crises situation for 2010. The exact opposite arguments for “change” will be made and then they can pack the House of Representatives.
Probably just more of my paranoia…lol…but…
Hmmm…kinda seems to fit their “weird” behavior around this Bill that everyone keeps shaking their heads about in befuddlement..
“Snowe, Specter and Collins”
should be Democrats. They have no problem with Democratic projects and with big government in Washington. They are even left of the more broadly-applicable conception of a Republican who is happy with big government (just not necessarily as overreaching as leftish Dems may want).
The real issue is that the Northeast and often, New England in particular (including Rhode Island, formerly electing Lincoln Chafee to Washington, another example of such a “Republican”), is well to the left of the US mainstream. Clinging to glory days of, or merely stuck hopelessly, in the past, is one initial impression or observation. (These “Republicans” are neither conservative nor fitting historical GOP positions and objectives, and they have no business expecting the GOP to become a Democratic Party clone or near-clone. To me the stuck-in-the-past hopelessness is exemplified once more by the lack of initiative shown by these people and by the Democratic Party, in that neither these people wish to join the Democrats, nor has the Democratic Party moved substantially to absorb them and their seats into the Democratic Party.)
California and urban western Oregon and Washington are also more liberal than the mainstream (and Republicans from there often show it) but if you've been to both areas, you'd realize that the West Coast is different somewhat from the Northeast (esp. New England) — newer (post-World-War-II rise), more dynamic and better positioned for the future, etc.
The bill had to be passed. NOW.. Good gawd men…….the country is floundering.
So what does Obama do? He puts the signing of the bill off till Tuesday.
Doesnt he realize the country could go down the tubes if he doesnt act NOW!!!!
Hmmm greenschemes…… your post makes me think he shouldn't sign at all, but instead send the Bill back to be honed down…so it will actually work…thus keeping the democrats in power through next year…so he'll have better than an icecube's chance in hell to make real change stick.
But what do I know?…. ; )
Will Obama sign the bill outdoors while he is in Denver, is what I want to know. It has to be some big public appearance, staged.
Sil
That is the logic I have been attempting to push across to the democrats who are really drunk with power right now rather then sober with reality. This bill should go back for a do over. The Democrats should have put the GOP's feet to the fire and made them part of this deal.
This should be a stimulus plan that actually stimulates the economy. The rest can come later. Next month the DEMOCRATS WILL STILL BE IN POWER!!!!!!
Nanny Pelosi and Harry Reid would rather have pay back. So be it. The GOP really are happy over this. The democrats have already pulled anchor and set sail with the GOP locked in the Brig screaming “I told you so.” The best hope is that the earth is not flat or they are both going over the edge and taking ALL OF US WITH THEM>!!