Archive for February, 2009
Useless
Stimulus deal reached, senators say – MSNBC (2/6/09): Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said the proposal breaks down this way: 42 percent is for tax cuts and 58 percent is new spending. If Kerry’s math skills have him even in the ballpark, the scare quotes I ordinarily use when mentioning the “stimulus” will become tattooed to [...]
The Krugmaster
Appeasing the centrists – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com …centrism is a pose rather than a philosophy. And to support that pose, the centrists are demanding $100 billion in cuts in the economic stimulus plan — not because they have any coherent argument saying that the plan is $100 billion too big, not because they [...]
It IS Too A Game, Mr. President!
President Obama on the stimulus bill debate yesterday: This is not a game… AP, January 31: Most Republican governors have broken with their fellow party members in Congress and are pushing for passage of President Barack Obama’s economic aid plan that would send billions to states for education, public works and health care. Their state [...]
Paulson Dwarfs Madoff
The TARP Congressional Oversight Panel has released a report which puts a number for the first time on how many billions of our money Hank Paulson managed to lose right up front when he pumped capital into mismanaged banks. By way of background, recall this Bloomberg article from four weeks ago: Henry Paulson may be [...]
2 Weeks 2 Late
Not the new Vin Diesel movie, your President: “Come on, we are not going to get relief by turning back to the very same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin. We can’t embrace a losing formula that says only tax cuts will work [...]
Questions About The Senate Stimulus Bill
Will it come up for a vote in the Senate today? Or will the Ben Nelson and Susan Collins (R, ME) so-called centrist group of Senators end up pushing the vote to Sunday? How many Republican votes will be needed to get to the magic number of 60? Will Al Franken suddenly be seated some [...]
Wall Street Bonuses
Mike Luckovich: Bookmark on DeliciousDigg this postShare on Facebookshare via RedditShare with StumblersTweet about itBookmark in BrowserTell a friend
Scabs Beware
NJ township can’t declare inflatable rat a pest – AP (2/5/09): Even a 10-foot inflatable rat has free speech rights in New Jersey, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday. In a case that pitted an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union local against a central Jersey town, the high court ruled unanimously that the rodent [...]
If You Can’t Beat Them, Make Them Your Role Models
Rep. Pete Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, has a new role model for Congressional Republicans. The Taliban. I kid you not! Frustrated by a lack of bipartisan outreach from House Democratic leaders, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said House Republicans — who voted unanimously last week [...]
From Cheney to Summers
David Kurtz at TPM: I’m starting to get the sense that Larry Summers is to economic policy in the Obama Administration what Dick Cheney was to national security policy in the Bush Administration. Kurtz’s excellent analogy is in reference to this Bloomberg story: Paul Volcker has grown increasingly frustrated over delays in setting up the [...]