This is interesting. A Republican operative just sent Ben Smith an email admitting that Republicans hope the stimulus fails or that they can make hay out of some bullshit detail in it:
What if Son of the Return of TARP (or whatever name they’re giving this so-called recovery bill) doesn’t cause a rain of golden meteors and doesn’t create 25 million-bazillion new goodgreencollarhighpayingjobsforworkingAmericans? What if Obama gets stuck in the weeds defend all the left-wing crap shoved into this thing by his party? (Because you know in that with $50 million for the arts we’re gonna end up [unprintable] with a Federal Performance Art grant or some such nonsense.)
Obviously, Republicans hope that the economy is deep, deep in the shitter in 2010. That’s the only way they get back into power. They can’t stop the stimulus, all they can do is fuck around and try to score a few political points about contraceptives or “Federal Performance Art grant or some such nonsense” and then hope that the thing fails.
At this point, they’re actively rooting for millions of Americans to be out of work. They’re barely even pretending not to.