The Hill newspaper's Congress Blog posed a question to Capitol Hill's influential lawmakers, pundits and interest group leaders in their weekly "Big Question" feature:

"Given Democrats’ grip on power, is there any need for them to seek Republican votes in favor of the stimulus?"

Here's what I had to say:

"On paper, no, but there’s much more to the responsibility of governance than merely having the votes to pass what you want. The success of this “stimulus” package will ultimately depend on how it’s viewed by the American people. And, until the recklessly irresponsible spending provisions in this package that will do NOTHING to create jobs and give an immediate jolt to our economy are removed, the Democrats will have a hard time calling this a success, regardless of how many votes they have."

Read the full post here.