Conditional Past Tense

Well, it looks like the stimulus package will pass and Obama will probably sign it on Monday. This kind of reminds me of the weeks running up to the election, when it was obvious that Obama would win and the only thing that kept one from celebrating (or complaining) was the matter of waiting for him to win. It was a fait accompli which hadn't actually been accompli.

So, I'm going to write about this as though it has actually happened. If by Tuesday it goes down in flames, consider these remarks void.

To quote They Might Be Giants again, "no one in this world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful." The interested party whose vision this bill most represents is President Obama. He wanted a little something for everyone - tax cuts, social programs, infrastructure spending. The Republicans and Democrats were pushing for extremist ideological items and one by one those got knocked off. In the end, everybody gave up something and was furious that they gave up too much.

Which is, of course, exactly how lawmaking is supposed to work in this country. If you allow the system to work, it will homogenize and centerize America's laws. This is great for national stability, even though it is frustrating as hell. Indeed, the Constitution is a document written by young men to mimic the tastes of old men. Shout out to the founding fathers, yo! Nice work there. I'm looking forward to more of this kind of lawmaking over the next, uh, several years.

What the hell, let's say it: if Palin's on the ticket in 2012, the next eight. Real America may love her, but it turns out only about 30% of America is real. Weird!

Here's what I see in the coming three months - every time there is bad economic news, Republicans will grab a few headlines by saying that it's because the stimulus packaged passed. After that if things pick up as expected, they'll stop bringing it up and instead focus on how awful Nancy Pelosi is.

Since I'm making predictions I want to point to a model of how bipartisanship is going to work over the next few years. See this post from yesterday? A lefty will say a kind word about someone on the right, and the right will respond with terrible insults about someone on the left. Because you know, the pressure's off. It's pretty much how the stimulus debate played out, after all. Well, when you guys act that way, I'll do my best not to scold and patronize. After all, the polite thing to do is to keep those kinds of opinions to oneself.