“I WON”….Jonathan Weisman reports on today’s bipartisan stimulus meeting at the White House:
Challenged by one Republican senator over the contents of the package, the new president, according to participants, replied: “I won.”
The statement was prompted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona , who challenged the president and the Democratic leaders over the balance between the package’s spending and tax cuts, bringing up the traditional Republican notion that a tax credit for people who do not earn enough to pay income taxes is not a tax cut but a government check.
Obama noted that such workers pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, property taxes and sales taxes. The issue was widely debated during the presidential campaign, when Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, challenged Obama’s tax plan as “welfare.”
Good. Obama’s efforts to maintain good relationships across the aisle may mean that he’s wiser than me in these matters, but I still don’t think it’s going to work and I hope he doesn’t waste too much energy on it. This is the right response for something that’s already been hashed out a hundred times before.
