@PilgrimSoul: on the other hand politics are always and forever about compromise and they have to get the gddamn thing passed and I'd rather have the concessions come at the top and be integrated than be stupid and smuggled in some floor session to please one holdout or whatevs. I guess I was hoping our majorities would be enough but maybe it's not.

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@kelsium: But $500 doesn't buy very much in consumer goods these days anyway, so we are back to square one. That's not even close to what most people are paying on their mortgage in one month, either, so no dice there.

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[blogs.tnr.com]

Now, tax cuts to people who are worse off are actually an effective form of stimulus (because they tend to spend the money); the business cuts are obviously useless. The real problem, it seems to me, is that the dollar amount of the stimulus package was too low to begin with. Which may end up being a very big problem. The Obama team leaked that they were hoping that the bill would end up costing more as it moved through the legislative process (that's what usually happens), but the bill in question here is so large that I'm not sure that will happen.

Maybe the Obama team has a savvy plan for all of this, but count me as increasingly skeptical.

However, Republicans don't actually have a problem with infrastructure. They never have. It's essentially pork. I'm not worrying about the infrastructure spending. I'm worrying about the aid that the package is giving to the states, which for my money is the best, most important part of the plan.

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All the stimulus package is about is whether or not we're all going to have a LOT more time to argue about this stuff. ;)

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