President Obama came into office having won in what is usually considered an electoral landslide.  He has solid majorities in both houses of Congress and is one vote short of a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.   He campaigned with much rhetoric about the need for bi-partisan efforts to solve America's problems.  The term 'post-partisan' has been bandied about to explain the approach the Administration wishes to take.  

 Bi-partisanism only works if both sides want to work together.  A 'post-partisan' era can only exist if we in fact, can put our political antagonisms aside.  Judging from how the last week's worth of news cycles are going for the Administration, I think we have a long way to go before we get there.

 Obama's entreaties to the GOP have, to date, failed.  We have Rush Limbaugh openly wishing for the President to fail.  By extension, of course, he is hoping for a depression and four years of misery until Sarah Palin can swoop down from Alaska to the rescue.  It never fails to amaze me how blowhards like Limbaugh suddenly lose their patriotism when the other party is in power. GOP leader John Boehner proudly lead all House Republicans in voting against the stimulus package, despite all the work Obama's team put into including enough measures in the stimulus to satisfy GOP concerns (more tax cuts,  less for entitlement programs, removing money for HIV prevention). 

 Defeated presidential candidate Senator  John McCain is firmly against the stimulus package.  Senate Minority Leader McConnell is predicting the bill will not pass the Senate and wants to start from scratch.   What are their ideas for solving the gravest economic crisis in America since the Depression?  MORE tax cuts?  More of the same destructive fiscal policies that they promulgated in the Bush years that got us in this mess in the first place?  

 It is time for the Obama administration to leverage the political capital it earned in the election. The American people want change.  They have elected a Democratic President, a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate.  How much more definitive a voice can their be for a break from the Republican policies of the last eight years?  Administration officials are sacrificing important programs in the stimulus to try and attract Republican support to no apparent avail.  If that is the case, then maybe they SHOULD start over, and strip out the GOP 'carrots' and put back the important progressive programs and start creating some jobs already.   As Rep. Barney Frank said recently, "I never saw a tax cut fix a bridge. I never saw a tax cut give us more public transportation."

Interestingly, the bi-partisanship that Obama seeks may not come from Washington at all, but from state and local GOP officials who, faced with the realities of governing, will be looking for investments and assistance from the Feds.

Of course, we could just do it Rudy Giuliani's way.  At the end of last week, Giuliani suggested we all take it easy on criticizing the big Wall Street bonuses, because those dollars get spent and boost the New York City economy.   This has to be 'trickle down economics' in its most grotesque form.