Barack Obama's transition team is resisting Bush administration overtures to coordinate more on the financial-sector rescue, convinced that neither the lame-duck President George W. Bush nor the president-elect has the clout to win a smooth congressional release of more bailout funds.
With the first $350 billion of the bailout money nearly allocated, transition aides are pressing Treasury officials to convene a bipartisan meeting on Capitol Hill this week. Obama aides say the Treasury needs to sound out congressional leaders and rank-and-file lawmakers on what information they need to release the second, $350 billion tranche from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
Senior transition officials said they would attend the meeting, but they made clear they would neither lead it nor lobby for approval of the funds. Their focus is on passing a separate, half-trillion dollar stimulus program that Mr. Obama said Sunday would be the largest infrastructure program since the Eisenhower administration's construction of the interstate highway system.
Oddly enough, in 1933:
Hoover wanted FDR to join him in reasserting faith in the old-time conservative philosophy—support for a balanced budget and a stable currency through the gold standard. Had he done so, Hoover confided to a friend, FDR would "have repudiated two thirds of the so-called New Deal."
To avoid being co-opted, and because he felt like taking a vacation (as usual, without Eleanor), Roosevelt spent 12 critical days during the transition aboard Vincent Astor's yacht, selecting top cabinet members in coded ship-to-shore messages.
Granted, Obama isn't going on vacation yet (though Hawaii is just days away for him), but he is wise to avoid letting Bush pull him down into the quicksand. This is his mess. House and Senate leaders have been telling him for weeks now what needs to be done, but the President refuses to do so because to him, ideology is more important.
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