The Day in 100 Seconds: Viagra and Candy

It is Thursday, we're not in a free fall, not in a recovery either, I don't know when, bigger then ever, we will come out big time, Congressional report, stimulus money, misspent, no strings attached basis, second stimulus, I'm committed to the first stimulus, time to work, it's not working, poorly designed, poorly executed, turkey, second one may well be called for, hope it doesn't get watered down, like taking 1/2 tablet of Viagra, bunch of candy, new dust up between congress and the CIA, CIA lying since 2001, don't really want to know, American people want to see, on the level, political theater, bizarre episode, attacking the CIA, making the Speaker look good, dangerous, very, very bizarre, driving the Republicans to distraction, any excuse will do, looking for some adult supervision, oversight responsibility, and that's that

Stimulating: Jon Stewart has fun with the Republican Governors

My favorite was "well I think being against it doesn't preclude taking the money..."

Former President Clinton critiques President Obama's performance thus far

CNN's John Robert's interviewed Bill Clinton in Texas over the weekend.

Roberts: What do you think of the job that President Obama did on steering the stimulus plan through Congress, and does he in fact have the experience necessary to be a good president, reach across party lines and craft a bipartisan bill?

Clinton: Well first of all, he has reached across, and it takes two to tango. I find it amazing that the Republicans who doubled the debt of the country in eight years and produced no new jobs doing it, gave us an economic record that was totally bereft of any productive result are now criticizing him for spending money. You know, I'm a fiscal conservative, I balanced the budget, I ran surpluses. If I were in his position today, I would be doing what he's doing. Why? Because the problem with the economy is the housing decline led to the general decline in values. Assets are going down. This stimulus is our bridge over troubled waters till the bank reforms kick in. He did the right thing, he did everything he could to get Republican support. He took some of their tax-cutting ideas.

But if you look at this bill, it is designed do three things. And it does all three. It puts money in the hands of people who need money to survive -- unemployment benefits, food stamp benefits, tax cuts. Second thing it does is to give money to state and local governments so they don't have to lay a million people off or raise taxes. Either one would be bad for the economy. The third thing is it does is create new jobs. Given the Congress he had and the environment and the speed with which they had to move, I think he did a fine job with this. source: CNN

Bridge over Troubled Water. The guy knows his way around a metaphor.

Video: TPM Stimulus Post-Mortem

The chatter regarding the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will continue and the Republicans will keep the light shined upon it because they believe it is to their political advantage for the 2010 election cycle to do so.

Are the hedging their bets that the plan will fail? I just asked the Magic Eight Ball for an answer.

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Question: Will the stimulus plan fail?

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The economic stimulus package has been passed by both houses of Congress and is set to be signed by the President on Tuesday. But while the voting is complete the debate rages on. And what about the next item on the president's early agenda - the banking crisis and the question of nationalization? All that and more in today's Sunday Show Roundup: source: Talking Points Memo

Miltary Spending As Economic Stimulus v. Healthcare, Education, Infrastructure Spending, Mass Transit, Home Weatherization, Tax Cuts

Breaking down the bull pucky.

David Axelrod on Meet the Press talking American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

I miss Tim Russert when I watch this show these days. Tim knew how to do this without sounding like a nagger.

Let's Talk Stimulus: 7.6% is half way to Elkhart and President Obama is heading to the Hoosier city on Monday for a town hall

Is Elkhart, Indiana really the right place for President Obama begin the dialogue to make the case for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan to not only Hoosier families, but the American people?

Well there is the fact that the unemployment rate shot up to 15.3% in December in that Indiana city. But is that really a good enough reason to start there?

President Obama has been expressing a rather riled up stance as he has been talking about the legislation that has been debated in the Senate during the last week, and the urgency of getting it passed, and it has less to do with politics and more to do with people.

Statistics are showing where we are going. Yesterdays news reported the national unemployment rate rose to 7.6%. One could also describe that 7.6% rate as 'half way to Elkhart'.

Tuesday, the President intends to conduct town hall meetings with the people in Fort Meyers, Florida where the unemployment rate is 10%.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Friday said Obama plans to visit Elkhart, Ind., on Monday to tell residents what the roughly $900 billion stimulus plan would mean for them. Obama's original proposal was in the range of $800 billion, but the Senate's version has grown to more than $900 billion.

The president also plans a Tuesday trip to Fort Myers, Fla., to try to sell his economic recovery plan, which is being hashed over in Congress. source: AP

Source

President Obama toughens up his stance with Congress on passing stimulus plan

Does it sound cocky? Yeah it does a bit, but he is right, and certainly he has been patient as well as generous with the Republicans.

It's crunch time folks.

Obama said he was aware of the criticism of his spending package, but said the criticisms were rooted in "the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis in the first place," including the notion that tax cuts offered the best path to a recovery.

"I reject those theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change," Obama said. "So I urge members of Congress to act without delay." source: The Washington Post

Senator John Thune (R-SD) wraps the stimulus around the the equator

It's a lot of money. I think everybody gets that without stacking it up to the heavens or wrapping it around the world.

I still don't understand the point of the visual. Are we supposed to hate the stimulus bill?

Are we supposed to believe that it won't create jobs or stimulate growth or give consumers confidence?

I don't get it.

Maybe I need to look up the rest of the Senator's speech. I'm off to find ot on the Internets.

If you get it, would you explain it to me?

Debunking Republican Talking Points: 78% of Senate Stimulus plan will be spent in first 18 months

This is a good sign. If the Senate is able to adjust the legislation to put more into real jobs with real wages by way of funding infrastructure projects, I think we might be able to squeeze a little bit of stimulus out of this thing after all.

After we get through this dealy bob, I am looking forward to hearing more of a long term planning. Americans are putting up with more debt spending, but ultimately we will open our wallets for spending if we can see a light at the end of the tunnel, especially with respect to what our children and grandchildren may be obligated to pay back.

Forward thinking.

I suppose I am just a little bit impatient and I always have a hard time seeing the big picture in my small world.

I do try though. I really do.

The CBO just came out with a report about the Senate Stimulus plan and it shows that 78% of the $884 billion will be spent during the first 18 months.

http://cbo.gov /

The Obama administration vowed that they wanted at least 75% of the money spent from a stimulus package should be spent within the first 18 months.

The House version of the bill was found by the CBO to spend out 64% of the money in the first 18 months. As a result, GOP put out the talking point that not enough of the stimulus package would be spent quickly enough.

Now the CBO has looked at the Senate version and they have found that $694 billion of the $884 billion will be spent out in the first 18 months after it is enacted. This results in 78% of the money being spent which is better than House version of the bill. read more at Daily Kos

source: Democratic Underground

This Week with George Stephanopoulos: Barney Frank on stimulus and tax cuts

"The largest spending bill is going to be the War in Iraq."
--Barney Frank

Did I hear that Barack Obama won the election and the Democrats gained a bunch more seats in the House and some in the Senate?

I understand bipartisan stuff and I think that it's important. I just hope President Obama knows what he is doing with respect to how is he having some kind of relationship with the Republicans in congress.

My rat smeller isn't detecting any pungent odors just yet. I like the civil discourse a great deal as well.

Still.

And the Democrats did win the election for the most part right?

Just needed to double-check. I'm OK now. Don't worry about me.

Rachel Maddow's Stimulus Plan Showdown

Esplain it to me Lucy

Stock up on your anti-depressant of choice: "50% chance of depression in US"

Soon to be (but not soon enough) President Obama has such great challenges on his plate. Fiscal depression and physiological depression go hand-in-hand.

Bloomberg
Published: December 20, 2008, 22:40

San Francisco: The US economy has a 50 per cent chance of falling into a depression during the next three years, said Roger Farmer, a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research's economic fluctuations and growth programme.

"There's a significant probability things will get worse," Farmer, 53, said during a phone interview Friday. "We're certainly not at the end of the recession and things are getting worse."

A drop in the Conference Board's index of leading indicators, released Thursday, underscores econo-mists' expectations that the recession will be the longest in the postwar era as banks restrict credit, home and stock values plunge, and job losses mount. Farmer said he is predicting the US recession will last at least another year.

"Everything depends on business confidence, and what I see is declining confidence," said Farmer, who is also graduate vice-chair of the Economics Department of the University of California at Los Angeles.

The loss of confidence is leading households and companies to undervalue assets, which is hurting consumer spending and investment, he said. A government fiscal stimulus programme will have a "questionable" immediate effect on consumption and financial markets, Farmer said.

Instead, he said he supports the idea of letting the Federal Reserve or government step into the stock market by buying indexed securities such as those linked to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

Left to itself

"I don't think anything from historic episodes suggests that, left to itself, the economy is going to magically recover and come back to full employment," he said. source: Bloomberg

Front Pages: Random front pages of America's newspapers

• East Valley Tribune, published in Mesa, AZ USA

The Buffalo News, published in Buffalo, NY USA

• New York Post, published in New York, NY USA

• News & Record, published in Greensboro, NC USA

• Amarillo Globe-News, published in Amarillo, TX USA

• Kenosha News, published in Kenosha, WI USA

• Erie Times-News, published in Erie, PA USA

• The Journal Gazette, published in Fort Wayne, IN USA

Economic Stimulus Plan: BIG is the word, but how big is it really?

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Obama economic transition team has enough bad news and bad data to meet with President-elect Obama to talk the 'Big Number'.

The goal has been to put together legislation for an economic stimulus plan to submit to Congress so that the stimulus will be ready to be enacted on January 20th.

How big is it? Come on. Tell us! How BIG is it really?

BIG is the word (is the word that they heard)
It's got groove, it's got meaning
BIG is the time, is the place, is the motion
BIG is the way we are feeling

The number will remain premature until it is mature at which time it will likely be President-elect Barack Obama who will let us know what the proposed number will be. I do give credit to these pesky journalists who repeatedly ask the same question over and over and over again though.

Here is a snip from the Wall Street Journal.

Transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter denied any decisions have been made on the scope of the plan. "Any speculation on size or scope is premature at this time," she said.

Mark Madden, a Corvette assembly worker, hangs a door Friday at the Bowling Green, Ky., facility. As economic conditions worsen, Obama economists say the package will have to be larger than expected to ensure the stimulus reaches the economy.

On the upper bounds, liberal economists in the team have staked out $600 billion in the first year and $300 billion to $600 billion in the second, depending on economic conditions in 2010. Incoming Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said early this week he had tasked National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers to sound out conservative and liberal economists on their views.

The general sense among economists being canvassed by the Obama team is that "every day there's a new bad number," one of the people familiar with the matter said. "And people's sense of what the appropriate stimulus is rises" with the news. source: WSJ