Obama: No Common Ground

More:

“Many conservatives are just getting upset that Barack Obama comes into office talking about change and his first big initiative is a massive $800 billion [scratch that, One Trillion now!] dollar pork barrel project,” said Brian Darling, director of U.S. Senate Relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “If he wants to cut wasteful spending the first the thing he should do is veto his own stimulus bill.”

UPDATE: James Pethokoukis:10 Reasons to Whack Obama's Stimulus Plan UPDATE: NRO's Stimulus Primer:

It contains many items that are ideological and/or pork-barrel projects disguised as stimulus, whose funds will not even be spent until 2011. It gives gradual fiscal support—again, most of it coming after 2011—to states that have simply mismanaged their budgets with over-generous welfare policies. [snip]

But the package has very little for small businesses, whose recovery is essential for economic confidence to return. Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.) misspoke earlier today when he said that the Democrats' bill contains $4 in spending on landscaping for the National Mall for every $1 in small business tax relief. In fact, it contains $5 for landscaping the National Mall for every dollar in small business tax relief.

*** The Politico:

Obama was responding to a question from Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) who was asking about whether there was any more common ground on tax cuts in the $825 billions stimulus.

Obama told the private meeting of the House GOP conference that tax relief for some working families must come from payroll taxes, so even families who don’t pay income taxes get relief.

One conservative House Republican in the room who was asked if Obama was winning any votes added, "Nope. He said he won't compromise on more tax cuts. All form - not substance."

Emphasis mine. This is an income transfer, not a tax cut, not a stimulus. There will be some amendments from Senate Republicans. Will any Dems join in to pass some improvements in the bill to actually stimulate the economy and create jobs? It looks like the president is being rolled by liberal House Dems. Um, he did apparently listen to the GOP over lunch. But he didn't do anything else.

UPDATE: Steve Huntley, Sun Times, Obama's response to crisis Bush-like:

Now the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office finds just $26 billion of the $355 billion in the package for highways, bridges and other job-creating investments would be spent in this fiscal year. Only $110 billion would be spent by the end of 2010. The question: Is this bill another big government, big-spending bonanza to achieve Democratic policy goals -- one that will cripple the nation with staggering deficits and a future round of wealth-draining inflation while doing little to alleviate the current economic downturn? [snip]

Anytime Congress spends half a trillion dollars on the fly, there's got to be waste. The stimulus bill includes money for long-range infrastructure, social and energy policies, spending that would extend beyond the recession. They may be worthy ideas. But wouldn't it be better to take them out of this package, give them the full debate the nation deserves, and target the stimulus measure on temporary, near-term emergency provisions?

One who thinks so is Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.). He submitted a memo to the House Appropriations Committee asserting 1.85 million jobs -- half of the total proposed in the Democratic package -- could be generated with spending only $65 billion. He picked 11 of the 152 appropriations in the bill that "have the highest payoff" and "are some of the lower cost items." That's the kind of fiscally responsible thinking this process needs. The programs Kirk cites focus on such areas as highway, clean water, transit and energy investments.