Kos has The Full Monty.
This catches my eye:
It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe.
I know Maddow was all excited about this; but, in another view, there is no short-term (and in yet another, it is a grave capitulation to the pandering of the no-new-taxes crowd, who are ruining the Republic).
What we might really need are a series of short-term moves that make the long-term prospects for the economy look ever rosier and stable.
An accelerating stimulus, one that spends more and more each quarter, would provide as powerful a backdrop as one can think of, off hand, to achieve that.
If someone (Larry Summers?) sells Obama on a "short-term" conception that is a "bridge" until the "real" stimulus kicks in, then it's hard to get really comfortable with that.
Wouldn't it be better to spend $300bn directly addressing the bad-debt hangover of the home-foreclosure crisis and the negative aspects of the 2005 bankruptcy bill, than in a broad-spray, across-the-board tax-cut that the markets may see as a bridge to nowhere, as finite? (Politically, there is always time for a tax-cut, right, so there is no obvious rush to fulfill an ill-advised promise, even had there been no downturn).
It's notable (to me) that Obama doesn't mention the stimulative effect of the GOP's unpaid for nation-building-exercises, that we still handle via "supplemental" appropriation .... (or should I say, "festooned", when the GOP did them?).
I hope they don't spend too much time with electronic medical records.
I wish he mentioned marrying technological advance with the roads, bridges, and tunnels, too. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of paying to have the same roads repaved. What's more, there are exciting materials to work with in construction that are ecologically sound and might last as long as the Roman roads have ...
For "state and local" government, one wishes they could do a package for Michigan, California, and maybe Florida.
Since that won't pass the Senate, couldn't they avoid the Senate's backroom backwashing, but just offering to pick up the tab for medicaid, an increasing amount each month for the next 36 months, freeing up resources in the rest of the State budgets?
