The Washington Post just can't let go of the myth that the 2009 stimulus package was an act of partisanship by Democrats:

The GOP plan to fund the government through September is an assault on bedrock Democratic priorities. It imposes substantial spending cuts that would alter the role of government in nearly every area of society - from education and human services to transportation projects, foreign humanitarian aid and medical research. Gone, too, are an array of federal environmental regulations and consumer-product safety measures that private industry has long opposed.

...

House Republicans also gave up an opportunity for bipartisanship. The bill passed a divided House at 4:40 a.m. Saturday; after five days of debate, not one Democrat supported it. By eliminating dozens of government programs, Republicans drove away those Democrats most inclined to vote with them - moderate Blue Dogs. The result harked back to Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan, which passed a bitterly divided Congress two years earlier, almost to the day.

Got that? The House GOP budget, which “is an assault on bedrock Democratic priorities” abandoned an “opportunity for bipartisanship” by driving away Democrats -- which “harked back to” the stimulus. Except there's one big difference: Obama and Democrats made the stimulus smaller than many economists thought it needed to be, and included $288 billion in tax cuts, in part in an effort to win GOP support. Republicans waged an assault on bedrock Democratic priorities; Democrats included bedrock Republican priorities. Other than that, though: Totally similar.

Later, the Post “reports”:

Republicans, many of whom were elected on mandates to slash spending, said the cuts are painful but necessary.

The Post offers no facts to substantiate this dubious assertion. To the extent that last year's elections constituted a “mandate” for anything, polling before and since strongly suggests Americans are more concerned about jobs and the economy, though the Post has had some difficulty remembering this.