WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan ran into crossfire from his own party in Congress on Thursday, suggesting that quick passage of spending programs and tax cuts could require more time and negotiation than Democrats once hoped.
Senate Democrats complained that major components of his plan were not bold enough and urged more focus on creating jobs and rebuilding the nation’s energy infrastructure rather than cutting taxes.
Just hours earlier, Mr. Obama called for speedy passage of the stimulus measure, warning that the recession “could linger for years” if Congress did not pass his plan within weeks.
Further complicating the picture, Democratic senators said Thursday that they would try to attach legislation to the package that would allow bankruptcy courts to modify home loans, a move Republicans have opposed...
Bu$hie has given close to $400 billion dollars to banks theoretically to serve as capital for business loans, but which bankers have admitted they're using as a war chest for further speculative ventures and takeovers. Oh, yeah, and CEO payrolls.
But keep track of the money? Now, that's funny.
who gives a shit"
Paul$on's Treasury has given a further $2 trillion dollars in loans over the last 6 months that Congress hasn't had to approve. Same results. The big money just gets bigger.
So now Congress- the Democratic side, some of which is marginally saner- is thinking perhaps they should spend money on, you know, rescuing the economy instead of tax breaks. Because you can't spend that money if there's nothing to spend it on, and middle class American's can't get tax breaks if they don't have jobs.
Krugman:
...To close a gap of more than $2 trillion — possibly a lot more, if the budget office projections turn out to be too optimistic — Mr. Obama offers a $775 billion plan. And that’s not enough.
Now, fiscal stimulus can sometimes have a “multiplier” effect: In addition to the direct effects of, say, investment in infrastructure on demand, there can be a further indirect effect as higher incomes lead to higher consumer spending. Standard estimates suggest that a dollar of public spending raises G.D.P. by around $1.50.
But only about 60 percent of the Obama plan consists of public spending. The rest consists of tax cuts — and many economists are skeptical about how much these tax cuts, especially the tax breaks for business, will actually do to boost spending. (A number of Senate Democrats apparently share these doubts.) Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center summed it up in the title of a recent blog posting: “lots of buck, not much bang.”
The bottom line is that the Obama plan is unlikely to close more than half of the looming output gap, and could easily end up doing less than a third of the job...
What's wrong with this economy and the Nation is that the same corporate interests that bought the Republican party also now own about half the Democrats. And they have a lien on the new Hope and Change Preznit, too. But Oprah's okay with this: her sponsors keep it cushy regardless of what's down on the block.
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