As demonstrated on so many occasions, most recently by the 95% drop in Republican support for TARP, almost all Republicans in Congress are bad faith actors. You can’t compromise or appeal to people whose motives are simply to oppose you, rather than to actually stand for any principles or values (except, I guess, the principle of opposing you). The sooner congressional Republicans make their purely contrarian motives clear, as they have done in this case, the sooner we can move on to just passing good legislation. Let’s drop futile attempts to appease those who caused our problems in the first place, and stay focused on cleaning up the mess they left.
If:
Number of Republicans for stimulus after family planning (etc.) funding cut = 0
-and-Number of Republicans for stimulus had funding remained = X
X = ?
This didn’t have to happen. No one needed a lesson in Republican bad-faith bargaining, and everyone needed an effective stimulus bill. This was nothing more than a branding exercise by Obama. And the funny part is that because he had no media strategy in place, Republicans get to look tough and all the stories are talking about his failed attempt at bipartisanship. Ego’s a bitch.