It warmed the cockles of me heart to see the smiling faces of President Obama, the Democratic leaders of the House AND the House minority leader, too, all in a row accompanying this front-page story posted by The New York Times online.
The gist of the bylined piece by Peter Baker is that the President and Capitol Hill leaders from both sides of the aisle have pushed forward with "plans to pass a bipartisan economic recovery plan by mid-February, predicting that they would be able to settle their differences over the size and nature of the package."
And that is good news for all of us as it is very clear the engines of our powerful economy are just never going to kick back into high gear until our leaders in Washington can get the expected $825 billion-or-so stimulus package passed.
“It appears that we are on target to make our President’s Day weekend,” said Mr. Obama, referring to the goal of passing the legislation by the next Congressional recess. He said that while “there are still some differences around the table,” everyone agreed “that we are experiencing an unprecedented, perhaps, economic crisis that has to be dealt with and dealt with rapidly,” reported Baker.
The story went on to relate that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters “we’re on schedule for our timetable” and Republican Senate minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) agreed, saying “I do think we’ll be able to meet the president’s deadline.”
I for one hope they all keep their obviously bipartisan effort of the moment up and make something happen we can all benefit from. And maybe even feel good about. And maybe even real soon.
