First, regardless of the rhetoric, the Obama plan is designed to grow government not to improve the economy. (As suggested by the article, even Obama’s rhetoric generally mentions only government job creation, i.e., the creation of government, not private sector, jobs.) The result of the original New Deal was a great expansion of government and Democratic control of Congress for about 50 years. That’s what 0 wants and with overwhelming majorities in both houses, he’s likely to get whatever mislabeled “economic stimulus package” he proposes.
Second, the Republicans, particularly the party leaders, like Bush and McCain, already bought into the idea of “bailing out” business with massive infusions of federal cash. Now that the $700 billion+ bank bailout has been substantially funded, there are bipartisan complaints of how the money is being spent. Surprise! When you start passing out checks ending in 9 zeros, you may get some wasteful spending.
Third, the American people are completely used to corruption and don’t seem to give a damn. Rod Blogojevich was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2006 amid acknowledgement by Illinois citizens of both parties – the Democrats I talked to were even more vicious in their attacks on Blago than the Republicans- that his administration was crooked and under federal investigation. During the 2008 campaign, no one paid attention to the political contributions by the folks at Fannie and Freddie – most notably to Chris Dodd and Barry Obama, the top two recipients. They just blamed Bush or the Republicans for all the problems. Especially for the first few months of the Presidential honeymoon, nobody is going to focus on the kind of corruption and mismanagement (for which the Republicans can take a good share of the blame) that got us into this mess.
In sum, yes, tax cuts would help the economy more than massive new spending; requiring accountability from the recipients of federal bailouts would be a prudent course; and it would be great if the public would care about corruption. But based on their recent record, don’t count on Republicans even articulating such things, let alone selling them to the complacent, 0-infatuated American public.
