Please, no more controversy until November. We passed healthcare, great, fantastic. We can’t afford a fight on education now. I know that President Obama’s insatiable appetite for radically moderate social reform means he wants to move on to education now. I know that Arne Duncan is itching for his chance at the big dance.
But we have to stop and wait. Social reform is done for the year.
Democrats need to do two things:
1) Pass a series of modest bills targeting unemployment, including small stimulus bills. If they can get a few Republicans on board, that is ideal. In a spirit of wishing to see the government work, I’d like to see broad bipartisan support for fixing the economy.
2) Pray, pray, pray that that jobless rate goes down. That is, if the Democrats don’t want to be the next people collecting unemployment checks come January.
As an addendum: I was at Barclay’s headquarters in London for a meeting today. The elevators have a little screen with Bloomberg playing–what was on? Geithner talking about reforms to Fannie and Freddie. I am sure coverage in the US is dominated by the healthcare signing, but internationally, it seems that some folks have moved onto the next thing. The White House is clearly ready to push the next bit and avoid the Republican noise.
