Quote of the Day

"They could have saved a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of jobs with more forethought in the fall." -- Steve Benen, commenting on the Republican's (and in turn, America's) lost opportunity to stimulate the economy last year when it would have cost a whole lot less and been a whole lot more effective. Forethought, or thought generally, is not something Republicans do well.

42%

That's the percentage of tax cuts in the stimulus bill compromise reached in the Senate tonight. That's about thirty percent too much. Very disappointing.

Start "good" banks

Paul Romer, senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, in today's Wall Street Journal:

Everyone agrees that the United States urgently needs a few good banks. Turning bad banks into good banks is a difficult and risky way to get them. It's simpler and safer to start entirely new banks.

In this context, "good" means a bank with assets and liabilities that are easy to value using market prices. At a good bank, officers, regulators and investors can be confident about the value of the bank's capital.

Creature, senior nothing and blogger, from a week or so ago:

On the other hand, if the Obama administration is so keen on setting up a bank, why not set up a "good bank" that will responsibly loan money and eventually fill the vacuum when Citibank and Bank of America collapse under the weight of their own stupidity.

Maybe it's time to give up my day job.

The president on offense

If you haven't seen it, here's the president from last night's Dem retreat putting the stimulus in perspective and Republicans in their place. The argument may have gotten away from him earlier in the week, but no longer. This is the president we elected.

7.6%

That's the percentage of people filing for unemployment in the United States today. That's 598,000 jobs lost in January alone. That's the "deepest cut in payrolls in 34 years." That's scary. Unless, of course, you're a Republican. If you're a Republican then it's just another excuse to scream tax cuts. Sometimes I wonder if the Republican party represents actual human beings.

Allowing congressional Republicans to influence the stimulus bill....

...is like letting Tom DeLay influence ethics reform legislation.

Quote of the Day

"Scaring people is not leadership. Writing an editorial that if you don't pass this bad bill we're going to have disaster -- we've had enough presidents trying to scare people to make bad decisions." -- Sen. Lindsey Graham, criticizing President Obama while apparently forgetting that it was his president, his party, and he himself, who spent the majority of last eight years "trying to scare people" into making bad decisions.

Blue Texan adds, "No word on whether he said that last part with a straight face."

Four is enough

Susan Collins (ME), George Voinovich (OH), Arlen Specter (PA), and Olympia Snowe (ME), these were the only Republicans willing to vote down Sen. Jim DeMint's absurd alternative to Obama's stimulus plan. All the president has to do is keep these four in his camp and the stimulus bill will pass. All the huffing and puffing from the 36 other Senate Republicans, not to mention all those morons in the House, is simply noise that must be filtered out.

While America burns

CNBC: Jobless Claims Hit 26-Year High

The GOP fiddles.

You lost

Karl Rove:

Democrats are betting that Americans now embrace centralized, top-down government and are willing to pay for it. They are wrong and will suffer politically for their misjudgment.

This from the man whose own math predicted an enduring Republican majority. How's that working out for you, Karl?

37%

That's the percentage of people who support the current stimulus plan. That's down from 45% not too long ago. Which all adds up to the failure of Democrats to get their message out. The people need to be reminded who drove this country into the ditch and Democrats don't seem up to the task.

Rooting for disaster

David Kurtz is right. With Cheney salivating over a potential terrorist attack (which will happen, according to Dick in a new and disturbing interview with Politico, because Obama is too busy upholding the Constitution) and with the joy Republicans have taken over the soon to be total collapse of our economy under the weight of their obstructionist stupidity, it does seem they are a party rooting for America to go under. They see it as a way back to power. They forget that there might not be a country left to rule if they succeed.

Obama to cap executive pay

"If the taxpayers are helping you, then you’ve got certain responsibilities to not be living high on the hog." -- President Obama

Hog-less [Bloomberg]:

President Barack Obama will announce today that he’s imposing a cap of $500,000 on the compensation of top executives at companies that receive significant federal assistance in the future, responding to a public outcry over Wall Street excess.

Good. Now, if someone could school these executives on how not to bankrupt their companies we'd all be better off.

2%

That's the percentage of spending House Republicans consider "wasteful provisions" in the Senate's version of the stimulus bill. As Steve Benen says, "After screaming "pork!" and "waste!" non-stop for weeks, these guys really should have been able to come up with more than just 2% of the bill. A list like this one is practically an endorsement of the administration's agenda."

This whole stimulus exercise is getting old, fast.

Today's Republican Party

From Joe the Plumber as economic consultant to Sen. Thune and his mile-high, trillion-dollar chart, it really seems the GOP has jumped the shark. Don't they know 70% of the country is in no mood for their crap?

78%

That's the percentage of cash that will be spent during the first 18 months of Obama's stimulus bill. Looks like the GOP (and David Brooks) will need a new lie.

Who will fill the media void?

Josh Marshall:

The pretty simple fact here is that the Republicans are not willing or able to criticize any of the substantial amounts of spending in this bill. They're focus on a few tiny parts of it. And too few people are pointing out that these amount to maybe one or two percent of the program total.

I don't necessarily blame Republicans for trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people regarding the stimulus. It's their nature. However, it's the media's job to point out, as Josh Marshall says, that the amounts Republicans are harping on come to "maybe one or two percent of the program total."

Now, since the media is too busy setting up false equivalents between Republicans and Democrats and, after eight years of Bush, it should be painfully obvious to any Democrat that the media will never point out the lies beneath Republican spin, it's Democrats that must step up to fill the void and this is where they are sorely lacking. Nobody wants to do the media's job for them, but for the sake of the country someone must.

That damn "N" word again

Krugman:

So banks need more capital. In normal times, banks raise capital by selling stock to private investors, who receive a share in the bank’s ownership in return. You might think, then, that if banks currently can’t or won’t raise enough capital from private investors, the government should do what a private investor would: provide capital in return for partial ownership. [...]

And in return for what is likely to be a huge subsidy to stockholders, taxpayers will get, well, nothing. [...]

Meanwhile, Wall Street’s culture of excess seems to have been barely dented by the crisis. “Say I’m a banker and I created $30 million. I should get a part of that,” one banker told The New York Times. And if you’re a banker and you destroyed $30 billion? Uncle Sam to the rescue!

There’s more at stake here than fairness, although that matters too. Saving the economy is going to be very expensive: that $800 billion stimulus plan is probably just a down payment, and rescuing the financial system, even if it’s done right, is going to cost hundreds of billions more. We can’t afford to squander money giving huge windfalls to banks and their executives, merely to preserve the illusion of private ownership.

Nationalize them and let the people profit. It is that simple.

Quote of the Day

"I never saw a tax cut fix a bridge. I never saw a tax cut give us more public transportation. The fact is, we need a mix" -- Congressman Barney Frank, masterfully countering Senator Jim Demint's stale Republican rhetoric of tax cuts as cure all.

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