His inauguration just days away, President-elect Barack Obama is facing friendly fire over his economic stimulus plan. With today's grim news that unemployment skyrocketed to 7.2% in December came rumblings of discontent from economist Paul Krugman, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a bevy of Democratic Senators worried that Obama's proposed recovery package is too timid given both the scope of the crisis and his overwhelming mandate from the American people. But in addition to heeding the words of his allies, Barack Obama would do well to learn the lesson taught by one of his fiercest opponents, Dick Cheney.
Following the disputed 2000 election, the Bush-Cheney transition team prepared to assume the White House without either a popular vote mandate or dominant majorities in Congress. But while the mainstream media consensus concluded that a "weakened" President Bush would have to govern from the center and "build bridges to the opposition," Dick Cheney had a different idea. Especially when it came to the Republican ticket's radical plan of tax cuts for the economy, Cheney insisted:

"We don't negotiate with ourselves."

As Barton Gellman details in his book, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, Dick Cheney made it abundantly clear that the Bush administration would put pedal to the metal in pursuit of its radical agenda. In a series of media appearances that December, Cheney proceeded as if the Florida recount and Bush v. Gore had never happened.
His December 3, 2000 exchange with the late Tim Russert on Meet the Press is particularly telling:

RUSSERT: Governor Bush and you campaigned on a platform of a $1.3 trillion tax cut. Now that the Senate is 50-50, Democrats-Republicans, and the Republicans control the House by eight or nine votes, won't you have to scale down your tax cut in order to pass it? [...] But, in reality, with a 50-50 Senate and a close, close, small majority in the House, you're going to have to have a moderate, mainstream, centrist governance, aren't you?
CHENEY: Oh, I think so. [...] But I think there's no reason in the world why we can't do exactly what Governor Bush campaigned on.

Two weeks later, following the controversial Supreme Court decision which made George W. Bush the 43rd President, Cheney made his case even more forcefully on Face the Nation:

"As President-elect Bush has made very clear, he ran on a particular platform that was very carefully developed. It's his program, it's his agenda, and we have no intention at all of backing off of it. It's why we got elected.
So we're going to aggressively pursue tax changes, tax reform, tax cuts, because it's important to do so. [...] The suggestion that somehow, because this was a close election, we should fundamentally change our beliefs, I just think is silly."

When Gloria Borger interrupted to object that "with all due respect, the Democrats are saying that this administration cannot proceed as the Reagan administration did, for example, with a large tax bill, because you don't have the mandate that a Ronald Reagan.," Cheney fired back:

"There is no reason in the world, and I simply don't buy the notion, that somehow we come to office now as a, quote, 'weakened president.' [...] We've got a good program, and we're going to pursue it."

Which is exactly what transpired. By April 2001, President Bush and Vice President Cheney had their $1.2 trillion tax cut, courtesy of precisely the strategy Borger ridiculed as " cherry pick[ing] one or two Democrats here and there and get them to sign on to whatever tax bill you have."
As we fast forward eight years to Barack Obama's upcoming inauguration, a much different approach seems to be underway. With a two-to-one margin in the Electoral College, a 7 million vote plurality, huge Congressional majorities and unprecedented approval ratings in his back pocket, Obama seems poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
That, at least, is the worrisome picture emerging from the rollout of his economic stimulus package. Too willing (again) to accommodate his irreconcilable Republican foes before even taking the oath of office, Obama has already begun compromising his campaign agenda. His promise to offer middle class tax cuts funded in part by repealing the Bush give-away to the wealthiest Americans has been backburnered, a move which prompted Nancy Pelosi to protest, "Put me down as clearly as you possibly can as one who wants to have those tax cuts for the wealthiest in America repealed." The inclusion of a bevy of business tax breaks so beloved by Republicans raised hackles among Congressional Democrats. As Iowa Senator Tom Harkin expressed his disappointment over the $300 billion in tax breaks in the stimulus proposal:

"It still looks like a little more of this trickle-down, if we just put it in at the top, it's going to trickle down. A number of people in there said, 'Look, we have got to have programs that actually create jobs and put people to work.'"

And then there's New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. "Mr. Obama's prescription doesn't live up to his diagnosis," he said today, adding, "The economic plan he’s offering isn't as strong as his language about the economic threat. In fact, it falls well short of what's needed." Asking why "only about 60 percent of the Obama plan consists of public spending," Krugman pondered the size of the federal debt or lack of spending opportunities as the culprits behind Obama's trepidation. But finally, Krugman hit on the political dimension:

"Or is the plan being limited by political caution? Press reports last month indicated that Obama aides were anxious to keep the final price tag on the plan below the politically sensitive trillion-dollar mark. There also have been suggestions that the plan's inclusion of large business tax cuts, which add to its cost but will do little for the economy, is an attempt to win Republican votes in Congress."

If that's the case, Obama is in for a rude awakening. As Krugman suggested on Monday, Obama risks bringing a knife to a gun fight in which Senate Republicans can't be assuaged, only thoroughly defeated. There are obvious limits to Obama's paeans to bipartisanship:

"Look, Republicans are not going to come on board. Make 40% of the package tax cuts, they'll demand 100%. Then they'll start the thing about how you can't cut taxes on people who don't pay taxes (with only income taxes counting, of course) and demand that the plan focus on the affluent. Then they'll demand cuts in corporate taxes. And Mitch McConnell is already saying that state and local governments should get loans, not aid - which would undermine that part of the plan, too."

For its part, the Obama camp claims to have gotten the message. This morning, President-elect Obama himself opined, "If Paul Krugman has a good idea, in terms of how to spend money efficiently and effectively to jump-start the economy, then we're going to do it." And after getting an earful from Democrats on Capitol Hill, Obama adviser Larry Summers said, "Message received, loud and clear."
In case there's any ambiguity on the point, that message should be to bold and stand behind an aggressive recovery program that is faithful to the principles that got Barack Obama elected. As Dick Cheney would have put it, "We've got a good program, and we're going to pursue it."
For his part, Dick Cheney is only too happy to offer advice to the incoming President. When it comes to the gamut of Bush administration war-time tactics including detainee torture and warrantless surveillance of Americans, Cheney suggested to Obama Wednesday:

"If I had advice to give it would be, before you start to implement your campaign rhetoric, you need to sit down and find out precisely what it is we did and how we did it, because it is going to be vital to keeping the nation safe and secure in the years ahead."

That, of course, is nonsense. But while Obama should ignore Cheney's self-serving advice when it comes to the perpetuating the criminality of George W. Bush, President Obama should follow Cheney's example from the 2000 transition when it comes to the economy:

"It's his program, it's his agenda, and we have no intention at all of backing off of it. It's why we got elected."