The Stimulus Package: An Embarrassment, or Victory for the President?

In short, I think it was a victory. Republicans are claiming that their almost complete opposition  to the bill (zero House Republicans voted for the measure, and only three Senate Republicans voted for it) is an embarrassment to President Obama because he was unable to garner bipartisan support. Let's think about this for a moment. Obama was able to pass the largest spending bill in history, in record time, in a form very similar to his original plan. How this could be portrayed as anything less than a political victory is a mystery to me. Furthermore, the public widely believes that Obama tried his best to be bipartisan, but Republicans would have nothing to do with him. So not only did Obama get what he wanted, people believe that he tried his best to be bipartisan.

As an aside, here is a breakdown of the spending in the final version of the bill. For what it's worth, I'm very happy to see that the funding for food stamps and aid to state and local governments made into the bill. Moderate Republican and Democratic senators tried to cut these from the plan altogether, even though temporarily increasing the funding for food stamps is one of the most stimulative measures we could take. Also, environmentalists seem to be pretty happy with the final outcome.