Morning Links

For your reading pleasure:

1. The Treasury Dept. is set to announce new regulatory controls over previously unregulated financial transactions.

2. The Pentagon says in a new report that China is seeking to boost it's military's power and effectiveness. China says we need to chill out. In the meantime, China prepares to force Tibetans to celebrate "Serf Liberation Day", the 60th anniversary of the Chinese invasion of Tibet.

3. 16 die in a Baghdad bombing.

4. American cities are dealing with an increase in "shantytowns" as the number of homeless rise. Hollywood producers Peter Samuelson wants to give them something better than cardboard boxes to live in.

5. Secretary Clinton bluntly admits that the failed U.S. war on drugs has contributed to rising violence in Mexico.

6. American taxpayers are paying for the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, if in a backhanded way.

7. New study says that most wrongful convictions in Texas stem from witness misidentification.

8. Lisa Falkenberg on Gov. Perry's stimulus fund logic (or lack thereof.)

9. The next American soccer star?

10. A question about student loan forgiveness tops the list at the new "ask the President" website.

Democrats Vow to Overturn Perrys' Decision on Stimulus Funds

It took about five minutes for State House and Senate Democrats to denounce Perry's decision to reject stimulus funding for an expansion of unemployment benefits and vow to change the law so that Texas is eligible for the additional funding.

Rick Perry Is an Ass

And BOR explains why dammit.

Stimulus Not Enough

While Republicans and their useful fools in the media elite are busy complaining about "pork" that might possibly arise to single-digit percentage points of the total stimulus package, economists are worried that the stimulus package isn't doing enough to boost the economy. Paul Krugman:

To see how bad the numbers are, consider this: The administration’s budget proposals, released less than two weeks ago, assumed an average unemployment rate of 8.1 percent for the whole of this year. In reality, unemployment hit that level in February — and it’s rising fast.

Employment has already fallen more in this recession than in the 1981-82 slump, considered the worst since the Great Depression. As a result, Mr. Obama’s promise that his plan will create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 looks underwhelming, to say the least. It’s a credible promise — his economists used solidly mainstream estimates of the impacts of tax and spending policies. But 3.5 million jobs almost two years from now isn’t enough in the face of an economy that has already lost 4.4 million jobs, and is losing 600,000 more each month.

There are now three big questions about economic policy. First, does the administration realize that it isn’t doing enough? Second, is it prepared to do more? Third, will Congress go along with stronger policies?

Krugman said the stimulus package wasn't enough when it was first proposed, and he's hardly changed his view now, with the economy worsening at a faster clip than predicted and job losses so vast that it appears an economic restructuring is taking place. But he's not alone. Here are a few other opinions from this Washington Post article:

Analysts increasingly view the administration's actions so far as insufficient given the scope of the problem. The stimulus package was designed to "save or create" 3.5 million jobs, according to the administration. But the nation has already lost 4.4 million jobs since the start of the recession. Many banks and other financial institutions, whose health is critical to the economy, are teetering, and the Treasury Department has yet to finalize the details of its plans to remove from their balance sheets the toxic assets dragging them down.

"It's premature to say we need another stimulus, but the economy is performing much worse than when [the law] was signed, and the odds are increasing that we'll need a bigger policy response," said Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com, who has advised Democratic lawmakers. "What we've learned is policy has been a step behind this whole downturn. It's important to get a step ahead."

The International Monetary Fund yesterday urged governments worldwide to consider additional fiscal stimulus, noting that the public sector must help prevent a collapse of confidence.

[...]

Regulators...are conducting "stress tests" of major banks so that the Treasury Department can better determine what kind of financial support they might need. Those tests assume that, in a particularly bleak scenario, the unemployment rate will average 8.9 percent this year and 10.3 percent next year. But if the government projections on unemployment turn out to be too rosy, officials could underestimate the trouble banks are in. A higher unemployment rate means greater losses for banks because more people default on their loans.

The worsening employment picture, meanwhile, could also create a hole too big for the stimulus package to fill.

As a result, government needs to step up and do more, said Heather Boushey, senior economist with the liberal Center for American Progress.

"It's not going to be enough, folks. I hate to break it to you," she said.

To be fair, not all economists believe that the stimulus package will actually achieve its intended purpose. And others are concerned about the massive debt we are incurring in our efforts to shore up the economy. No doubt I've lambasted the Bush administration on their complete lack of fiscal discipline (or more accurately, the politicization of budgetary policy) but it's hard to argue against even more bold action when we appear not to have even hit bottom yet.

"This is Americans' Money"

Republicans, demonstrating again that the only thing they can get behind is screwing the little guy out of some money.

One Man's Grandstanding, Is Another Man's Lost Dreams

The NY Times covers some of the rising anger at the political grandstanding that some Southern Republican governors are engaging in. And right under the headline "Jobless Angry at Possibility of No Benefits" what do we see? A picture of our very own Govenor, no doubt explaining why he feels no need to take money that would help people like this:

For people like Henry Kight, 59, of Austin, Tex., the possibility that the money might be turned down is a deeply personal issue.

Mr. Kight, who worked for more than three decades as an engineering technician, discovered in September that because of complex state rules, he was not eligible for unemployment insurance after losing a job at a major electronics manufacturer he had landed at the beginning of the year.

Unable to draw jobless benefits, he and his wife have taken on thousands of dollars in credit-card debt to help make ends meet.

It is precisely these kind of regulations, involving such matters as the length of a person’s work history or reason for leaving a job, that the federal government is trying to get the states to change. Such a move could extend benefits to an estimated half-million more people, according to the National Employment Law Project, a liberal group in New York that supports the changes.

Mr. Kight and other unemployed workers said they were incensed to learn they were living in one of a handful of states — many of them among the poorest in the nation — that might not provide the expanded benefits.

“It just seems unreasonable,” Mr. Kight said, “that when people probably need the help the most, that because of partisan activity, or partisan feelings, against the current new administration, that Perry is willing to sacrifice the lives of so many Texans that have been out of work in the last year.”

He was referring to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who has said he may decline the extra money rather than change state policy.

[...]

There is also confusion over what parts of the stimulus money are in danger. The governors have mostly said they do not object to the stimulus bill’s $25 per week increase in unemployment benefits, or a new federal extension of benefits.

As a result, many laid-off workers across the South have been fretting over precisely what they might lose out on, even as they express astonishment that they might not receive the help that jobless people in other states will get.

“I don’t understand the whole thing,” said Kelley Joyce, 43, of Myrtle Beach, S.C., about indications from Gov. Mark Sanford that he may reject some of the stimulus financing in that state. “Apparently because he has money and he doesn’t have to worry about everybody else who doesn’t have money.”

[...]

On Tuesday, Erica Greer, 32, and her mother, Candace Foss, 59, who lost her job as a data management specialist at Home Depot in late January, went to the State Capitol in downtown Atlanta from Kennesaw, Ga., a suburb where they live, to deliver a message to Gov. Sonny Perdue not to reject any of the stimulus money.

Mr. Perdue has said he fears the long-term consequences of accepting the money.

Ms. Foss got a severance package from Home Depot, so she has not yet applied for unemployment benefits. It appears she would be eligible for benefits, but she and her daughter said they wanted to stand up for unemployed Georgians and fight for their benefits. They wound up speaking to an aide to the governor for about 10 minutes and submitted a letter to Mr. Perdue.

“I don’t think he truly understands the plight of his citizens,” Ms. Foss said. “He’s surrounded by people with good jobs, who make good salaries. He’s not surrounded by people like me.”

I'd say Ms. Foss is probably right about that.

Schools: Stimulus Funds Are Not Enough

Driving in I heard this depressing report on NPR. Apparently, the unprecedented amount of stimulus funds set aside for education ($150 billion) is not enough to make up for budget shortfalls nationwide, or to save teachers in danger of being laid off. The report cited the example of Marion County in Florida, which is facing the possibility of laying off 500 of its 3000 teachers. It seems to me that this is yet another indictment of the funding system for schools in our country. I understand we're in an economic downturn, but as long as schools rely largely on the outmoded property taxes system the ability of states and school districts to make up for severe budgeting shortfalls remains crippled.

The Lesson of Japan

If like me you've heard our present situation compared to Japan's "Lost Decade" without really understanding what that means, this is a pretty good explainer:

Richard Koo, chief economist at the Nomura Research Institute, says the Japanese government implemented "one of the most successful economic policies in history."

Koo notes that when the real estate bubble of the 1980s burst, property values plummeted 87 percent from the peak nationwide. Counting the value of real estate and stocks, Japan lost wealth equivalent to three years' worth of gross domestic product. It was "just about the largest loss of wealth in human history in peacetime," Koo says.

Still, Japan wasn't in recession. While growth slowed, GDP never fell below the peak of the bubble. And unemployment never went above 5.5 percent — lower than the current rate in the United States.

The Japanese government tried to spur growth by reducing interest rates — from 8 percent to zero. But despite that drastic action, Koo says, "absolutely nothing happened — no increase in asset prices, no increase in economic activity."

[...]

Like Japan in the 1990s, the U.S. is suffering what Koo calls a "balance sheet recession." When asset prices collapse, the people who bought those assets with borrowed money are left with balance sheets underwater, and all they want to do is pay down debt.

"People are no longer maximizing profits the way it's assumed in economics. They're minimizing debt. The invisible hand of [economist and philosopher] Adam Smith works in the opposite direction," he says.

With private borrowing and spending frozen, the Japanese government stepped in, spending on highways, bridges and other infrastructure, and running up big deficits. Where the Japanese government erred, Koo says, was in worrying about those deficits. It cut back prematurely on the stimulus. The economy faltered, and the government had to resume spending.

Vindication

Remember a few of weeks ago, when Republicans were generally patting themselves on their collective backs for their brave stand against the Obama stimulus package, after Obama negotiated with them in good faith over the legislation? That worked out about as predicted:

President Obama is benefiting from remarkably high levels of optimism and confidence among Americans about his leadership, providing him with substantial political clout as he confronts the nation’s economic challenges and opposition from nearly all Republicans in Congress, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

A majority of people surveyed in both parties said Mr. Obama was striving to work in a bipartisan way, but most Americans faulted Republicans for their response to the president, saying the party had objected to the $787 billion economic stimulus plan for political reasons. Most Americans said Mr. Obama should pursue the priorities he campaigned on, the poll found, rather than seek middle ground with Republicans.

As the president addresses Democrats and Republicans in Congress on Tuesday evening, he does so with a sense among most Americans that he is trying to make good on his pledge to bridge the partisan divide. About three-quarters of those polled, including 61 percent of Republicans, said Mr. Obama has been trying to work with Republicans. But only 3 in 10 Americans said Republicans are doing the same, with 63 percent saying that Republicans opposed the economic stimulus package primarily for political reasons rather and policy concerns.

About 8 in 10 Americans said Republicans should be working in a bipartisan way rather than holding fast to their policies, the poll found, with almost three-quarters of Republican respondents agreeing that bipartisanship was preferable.

Bed already made, Republicans now commence lying in it.

Stimulus update

President Obama plans to announce tomorrow that the investigator that helped expose the corruption of Jack Abramoff will lead the oversight effort on the stimulus:

President Barack Obama plans to announce Monday a former Secret Service agent who helped expose lobbyists' corruption at the Interior Department as his pick to oversee the $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

Obama is set to name Earl Devaney as chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, an administration official said Sunday. Vice President Joe Biden also will be given a role coordinating oversight of stimulus spending.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House had not made public the announcement.

Devaney, the inspector general of the Interior Department, helped turn up disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings at the department. The department's No. 2 official, Steven Griles, pleaded guilty to charges he lied during congressional testimony based in part on Devaney's investigation.

Meanwhile, while some GOP governors are saying they might refuse at least part of the stimulus money, others are much more sane. Gov. Schwarzenegger even said he'd take the money if they don't.

UPDATE: The Obama administration announced that $15 billion for Medicaid will begin flowing to the states on Wednesday. President Obama is also tapping Vice President Joe Biden to oversee the implemention of the stimulus.

Obama Singles Out Texas

President Obama responds to Gov. Perry's ridiculous grandstanding:

President Barack Obama singled out Texas today as a state that could lose out under the huge stimulus plan because its governor may reject some funds.

Obama made the comments in a session with dozens of U.S. mayors, among them leaders from Dallas, Houston and Laredo.

"The president … joked about the fact that we need transit dollars in Houston, although the governor of Texas has said that maybe Texas won’t take money from the stimulus bill," Houston Mayor Bill White recounted afterward.

[...]

Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert said the stimulus will bring at least $20 million to $50 million for the city, and perhaps far more – enough to save or create thousands of jobs. Like White, Leppert expressed little interest in seeing Texas reject federal largesse.

"You can argue with the program from a philosophical standpoint, but it’s been implemented now," he said. "These programs are going to be made available one way or the other. If they’re not spent in Texas they’re going to be spent someplace else."

The money's already there Governor. Bitch and moan as much you want, but take it.

More on Housing Proposal

Via Matt Yglesias, Andrew Jakabovics and David Abramowitz provide a pretty good explanation of how the proposal offered by the White House will work.

White House Tackles the Burst Housing Bubble

The burst housing bubble, which kicked off the economic crisis we find ourselves in now, is the problem the Obama administration is not attempting to solve with a proposal to help homeowners who are underwater and/or facing foreclosure:

The plan, which is more ambitious than expected, would spend $75 billion to help keep as many as four million families in their homes, and would help as many as five million more refinance their mortgages to take advantage of lower interest rates.

“The plan not only helps responsible homeowners on the verge of defaulting, but prevents neighborhoods and communities from being pulled over the edge too,” the White House said in a fact sheet.

[...]

The plan would seek to entice lenders into lowering rates, and would offer homeowners a chance to shave thousands of dollars off their mortgages. The government would offer homeowners principal reductions of $1,000 a year for five years if they stayed current on their payments, and would give $500 to loan servicers if they modified loans before borrowers fell behind in their payments.

Or, if a lender lowered interest rates so that buyers were spending 38 percent of their monthly income on mortgage payments, the government would provide matching funds to lower that payment to 31 percent of income. The White House said such a reduction could equal $400 in monthly savings on a $220,000 mortgage.

The plan is necessary because, despite the fact that lenders acknowledge the foreclosure crisis and the importance of preventing further foreclosures, they seem incapable of working with homeowners on the scale necessary to even begin to address the problem.

Democrats in Congress are also working on a modification of bankruptcy law that would permit judges to "cram down" home loans in a Ch. 13 proceeding. In a op-ed I encourage you to read, Tom Evslin points out why this is also an important step in efforts to allow people to hang onto their homes (though there are those who have objections to the idea.)

UPDATE: From McClatchy, an article on the carrot (modification) and stick (cram down) approach of the Obama administration.

The Stupidest Governor in America

Rick Perry, our poor state's idiotic governor, says he's thinking about not taking the over $16 billion in funds the state of Texas is projected to get under the stimulus package:

Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday he’s not sure the state should accept all of its projected share of federal stimulus money — $16.9 billion and counting by preliminary estimates — because of the “mile-long” strings that might be attached.

“In Texas, we actually know it is a good idea to look a gift horse in the mouth. If we don’t, we may end up with an old nag,” said Perry, who has been critical of such federal spending and voiced concern over whether the state could afford federal strings.

“One thing that concerns me is that dollars are going to come into Texas that require us to match those dollars, and then two years from now, those federal dollars won’t be there, but we will be on the hook to pay for those programs going forward,” Perry said.
According to a preliminary legislative analysis, economic stimulus provisions that affect the Texas budget could total about $16.9 billion.

Perry didn’t say which programs he was referring to, and spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said his staff still is looking over potential allocations to Texas.

One program that raised concern early on was funding for unemployment insurance that would be contingent on state changes allowing more jobless people to become eligible, Cesinger said.

Speaking of which, here's Phillip Martin on Perry's incredible short-sightedness over the program, and his flip-flopping on stimulus funds:

Key Point: a year ago, the state's unemployment fund had a surplus of $90 million. Governor Rick Perry stopped collecting the replenishment tax, and now 12 months later, our $90 million surplus is a $447 million deficit.

[...]

Governor Rick Perry is trying to have his cake and eat it, too. He's spent the last three weeks railing against the bailouts, but even he recognizes that to do so is wrong. However, it's not wrong because Texas deserves its money, or because its good public policy to maximize the use of state funds. No -- Perry has only flip-flopped on his position on the bailout because it is politically necessary to do so.

In other words, when Perry wanted to make some of his business constituents happy, he stopped collecting the tax that maintains the unemployment insurance fund. After piling up a nearly $500 million deficit he re-instated it. Then, to stake out his position as a "fiscal conservative" for the 2010 governor's race race by appealing to the hardcare nuts in the GOP, he balks at taking stimulus funds. Realizing that this appears to put his political future ahead of the interests of unemployed Texans, he permits his underlings to discuss how they'd use the funds. And now he tells us that maybe Texas won't take "all" of the funds.

Whatever. Don't doubt for a second that Texas won't take all the money we can get, because we need it. It's just too bad that we have a governor who thinks he can squeeze a few political points out of it in the process, while suffering Texans wonder where their next paycheck will come from.

UPDATE: I spoke too soon. Texans alone may not be cursed with a stupid and grandstanding governor more interested in his political fortunes than his people's welfare. Apparently Jindal is also worried about the secret "strings" that may come attached to the $4 billion allotted for his poor state. 

President Obama signs economic recovery legislation into law

And he did it not in D.C., but in Denver where he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination back in August (he's also hitting other Western states to underscore parts of the package). It's an understatement to say this is a significant victory for a president just one month into his tenure:

The size of the new law and its speed moving through Congress -- it was approved within weeks of Obama’s inauguration -- place it among the most significant legislative accomplishments since President Franklin Roosevelt overhauled the U.S. government in his first 100 days, historians and political analysts say.

“We have plenty of big, complicated pieces of legislation that come down the pike, but this bill is unprecedented,” said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent political analyst in Washington.

The Obama administration has also launched a new website where Americans can track the progress of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Stimulus for the Navajo

More on how the stimulus will impact Native Americans. This time the focus is on the very poor Navajo reservation.

Senate Toughens Executive Pay Limits

Senate Democrats went against the wishes of the Obama administration and inserted even tougher executive compensation provisions in the stimulus package passed last night:

The pay restrictions resemble those that the Treasury Department announced this month, but are likely to ensnare more executives at many more companies and also to cut more deeply into the bonuses that often account for the bulk of annual pay.

The restriction with the most bite would bar top executives from receiving bonuses exceeding one-third of their annual pay. Any bonus would have to be in the form of long-term incentives, like restricted stock, which could not be cashed out until the TARP money was repaid in full.

The provision, written by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, highlighted the growing wrath among lawmakers and voters over the lavish compensation that top Wall Street firms and big banks awarded to senior executives at the same time that many of the companies, teetering on the brink of insolvency, received taxpayer-paid bailouts.

“The decisions of certain Wall Street executives to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers have seriously undermined public confidence,” Mr. Dodd said Friday. “These tough new rules will help ensure that taxpayer dollars no longer effectively subsidize lavish Wall Street bonuses.”

Not everyone is happy about the restrictions of course:

But some experts on executive compensation warned that the restrictions could unleash unintended consequences, like encouraging banks to increase salaries to make up for diminished incentive pay. Even then, they warned, banks were likely to lose top talent.

“These rules will not work,” James F. Reda, an independent compensation consultant, said on Friday. “Any smart executive will (a) pay back TARP money ASAP or (b) get another job.”

[...]

One unintended effect, compensation experts said, is that financial firms might increase banker salaries in order to increase the restricted stock awards. “About the only way to address these limits is to pay large salaries,” said Michael S. Melbinger, an executive compensation lawyer at Winston & Strawn in Chicago. “There’s no pay for performance in this.”

Others warned that because of the rules, firms might lose their best traders and managers to hedge funds and foreign banks.

Is this a hint of things to come?

Alan Johnson, a compensation consultant who advises many Wall Street banks, said that the rules would make it hard to recruit new managers, too.

“At some point, you begin to wonder: has the government given up on these companies anyway?” he said. “Why would the government or White House want to go along with that unless they have come to the conclusion they will have to nationalize these firms anyway?”

The idea has been bandied about, no doubt, largely because measures enacted and announced to this point have failed to get credit flowing again. Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic says the Obama administration is resistant to the idea, but if the latest plan announced by Geithner on Tuesday fails to get things moving, what alternative is there?

The Left Is To Blame?

Usually I think Glenn Greenwald is dead on, but I just don't get this:

The New Republic's John Judis today has an excellent analysis of the politics behind the stimulus package -- one which applies equally to most other political controversies. Judis argues that the stimulus package ended up being far inferior to what it could have been and points to this reason why that happened:

But I think the main reason that Obama is having trouble is that there is not a popular left movement that is agitating for him to go well beyond where he would even ideally like to go. Sure, there are leftwing intellectuals like Paul Krugman who are beating the drums for nationalizing the banks and for a $1 trillion-plus stimulus. But I am not referring to intellectuals, but to movements that stir up trouble among voters and get people really angry. Instead, what exists of a popular left is either incapable of action or in Obama's pocket. . . .

A member of one liberal group, Campaign for America's Future, pronounced the stimulus bill "a darn good first step." MoveOn -- as far as I can tell -- has attacked conservative Republicans for opposing the bill, while lamely urging Democrats to back it. Of course, all these groups may have thought the stimulus bill and the bailout were ideal, but I doubt it. I bet they had the same criticisms of these measures that Krugman or The American Prospect's Ezra Klein or my own colleagues had, but they made the mistake that political groups often make: subordinating their concern about issues to their support for the party and its leading politician.

During the 2008 election, Obama co-opted huge portions of the Left and its infrastructure so that their allegiance became devoted to him and not to any ideas. Many online political and "news" outlets -- including some liberal political blogs -- discovered that the most reliable way to massively increase traffic was to capitalize on the pro-Obama fervor by turning themselves into pro-Obama cheerleading squads. Grass-roots activist groups watched their dues-paying membership rolls explode the more they tapped into that same sentiment and turned themselves into Obama-supporting appendages. Even labor unions and long-standing Beltway advocacy groups reaped substantial benefits by identifying themselves as loyal foot soldiers in the Obama movement.

The major problem now is that these entities -- the ones that ought to be applying pressure on Obama from the Left and opposing him when he moves too far Right -- are now completely boxed in. They've lost -- or, more accurately, voluntarily relinquished -- their independence. They know that criticizing -- let alone opposing -- Obama will mean that all those new readers they won last year will leave; that all those new dues-paying members will go join some other, more Obama-supportive organization; that they will prompt intense backlash and anger among the very people -- their members, supporters and readers -- on whom they have come to rely as the source of their support, strength, and numbers.

Okay, I'm not as politically savvy or focused as either Glenn Greenwald or John Judis, but I have several problems with this. Here's Judis again: "Of course, all these groups may have thought the stimulus bill and the bailout were ideal, but I doubt it." Let's examine that. First of all, why does it have to be ideal to be supportable? Any halfway politically savvy group will realize that getting an "ideal" bill past Senate Republicans was impossible. What's wrong with it being good enough for now? Second, I think it is highly presumptuous and insupportable to assume that liberal advocacy groups know what an ideal bill would look like. Even leaving out economists of the right (who I assume, perhaps wrongly but I don't think so, aren't being widely read by people on the left) reading the various op-eds and blog posts by economists of the center and the left doesn't really give you a clue about what size the stimulus package should be (trust me on this.) Reading them, you could arrive at a range of anywhere from $800 billion to $1.5 trillion, and most economists-understandably-can't be pinned down on an exact number because they can't in good faith provide one. So what's so wrong about being in favor of the size of this bill?

And what's so wrong about mobilizing public opinion in support of this particular bill? If you think this bill is the best that you think your side can get, why wouldn't you go on the offensive against Republicans for opposing it? Or target fiscally conservative Democrats who are waffling on it? How is that selling out to the Obama administration?

Greenwald takes it even further. Apparently acquiescence on the political realities that surround the stimulus package are evidence that liberal groups have "voluntarily relinquished -- their independence." And yet nowhere-and I mean literally nowhere-have I seen anything like support for the Obama administration's decision to maintain the Bush administration's position on the state secrets privilege. Not on blogs, and not by liberal advocacy groups. Greenwald is not exactly afraid to take people on so I'm not sure why he goes with the much reviled "some say/some do this" approach. I read a lot of blogs, and I just don't see that much evidence for the point he's trying to make. Maybe I'm reading just the non-sellouts, but I don't think so. 

People like (presumably) Judis and (certainly) Greenwald, have routinely and harsly criticized Republicans for their willingness to toe the line for whatever the Bush administration wanted, demonstrating aptly the right's lack of principle at times. But Greenwald himself has focused on completely untenable positions that the right-wing has taken that failed to have any impact on the Bush administration, and the lesson we're supposed to take from that is that left-wing groups should do the same? So far no left-wing group has approached the hero-worship of the right, nor have they been willing to participate in frustrating and fruitless demands for action the Obama administration won't take. And this is a bad thing?

I simply don't understand. Or I should say, I don't think these arguments make much sense. Judis' argument is a turnaround of the usual attacks on the "hysterical left"; only this time, they were apparently not hysterical enough. Greenwald has gotten up in arms about liberals giving Obama too much credit and leeway before, so he's just expanding on an already-running thesis. But I just don't see it here. Liberal advocacy groups and bloggers, faced with a difficult-to-understand issue and a stonewalling Republican party, decided to get behind the best package they thought they could get. This is wrong, how? 

(Updated) Congress passes stimulus

The House of Representatives just passed the bill 246 to 183, with the Senate set to vote later this evening. No Republicans voted for the bill this time either (even though it has the biggest tax cuts in history), but there were less Democratic defections.

UPDATE: The Senate just passed the bill 60-38 (Sen. Kennedy was unable to make the vote). Sen. Sherrod Brown was flown in by the White House to cast the deciding "aye" vote and will fly back out to Ohio to attend funeral services for his mother who died earlier in the week (yes, the Republicans really suck). Of course, that wouldn't even be necessary if Norm Coleman would just let Al Franken finally be seated...

President Barack Obama will sign the legislation into law on Tuesday in Denver, marking a victory of unprecedented proportions after just 28 days in office.

UPDATE: A good summary of what's actually in the package.

House, Senate reach deal on economic stimulus package

Here are the dirty details. The price tag is less than both chambers' versions, at $789 billion, slightly below the $800 billion target of the Obama administration (which was already on the lower side of what economists say we need). But it was needed to placate the Republican senators whose votes are needed to pass the bill (it's unclear if the final version will garner any more GOP support, but don't count on it). Some of the tax cuts were scaled back and some of the state funding for schools restored (though only for existing school modernization and not new school construction). The stimulus is primarily meant to boost job creation, with an estimate of 3.5 million new jobs over the next few years (this DMN article suggests 286,000 of those will be here in Texas).

Both houses are expected to pass it by the end of tomorrow and President Obama will sign it into law at a public ceremony shortly thereafter.

UPDATE: Think Progress has a list of improvements in the final bill as opposed to the Senate version.