At that point, House Republicans just might look obstructionist if they fail to go along.
Aside from the fact that recoveries from financial crises are almost always slower than ordinary recoveries, in reality Reagan was much more Keynesian than Mr. Obama, faced with an obstructionist G.O.P., has ever managed to be.
He had been an ineffective President, faced with an obstructionist Congress and constrained by the conviction that he answered not only to the North but to the slaveholding South.
During the fall campaign, Mr. Obama briefly tried to make Mr. Boehner the face of an obstructionist opposition, hammering him repeatedly by name in a speech in Ohio for promoting "the same philosophy" that had failed in the past, one that favored corporations over teachers and the police.
On the national level, President Obama, faced with an obstructionist Republican Party and a paralyzed legislative branch, has either minimized or abandoned the possibility of new social initiatives that would raise wages and combat unemployment.
None of them look like obstructionist crazies.
No American president of the modern era, with the exception of perhaps FDR in last term, has faced a Congress as obstructionist or as intent on undermining the legislative policies of its chief executive.
There's an unusually tantalizing element to tonight's speech in that President Barack Obama may deliver a proper scolding to Republicans for what Democrats portray as obstructionist tactics in the face of the popular will.
So count on it: With a president too often bold in words but timid in action facing a Congress more Republican and obstructionist than ever, little will get done to fix inequality.
Given that these GOP governors preside over the nation's "black belt," Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina accurately called their obstructionist stance "a slap in the face of African Americans".
