Restitutor Orbis

The Nation is reporting a brilliant little piece of statesmanship by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). I haven't gotten too much into the healthcare debate here but something this precious can really make your morning.

The story concerns two Republican senators outsmarting themselves. It's like the plot from a novel. Intended to put Democrats who support the Public Option on the spot, they instead put themselves on the spot thanks to the quick with of Sherrod Brown, who was Johnny-on-the-spot when the idiocy hit the floor.

As the Nation reports, "Regal Republicans Senators who willingly accept government pay, government staff and government-organized and funded health care benefits are so sure that Americans would not want to enjoy the perks they have come to expect are sponsoring an amendment that would require members of Congress to sign up for whatever public option that is developed under health care reform legislation."

Fair enough. They seem to be saying, "put your money where your mouth is." It never occured to either of the bill's sponsors, Oklahoma's Tom Coburn and Louisiana David Vitter, that they might be the ones forced to stick their feet in their mouths.

They just figured that the Public Health option "would suck so horribly that no senator or congressman would want to be a part of it."

Riiiiiight.

Here's what Vitter said: "The idea, broad-brush, is that whatever government option is in the bill, every senator and every representative should be enrolled in it. No other possibilities, no other choices."

And Coburn: "It's called leadership. If it's good enough for everybody else, we ought to be leading by example."

Enter from stage left, Sherrod Brown: "A key Democratic senator, Ohio's Sherrod Brown, contacted the two Republicans and said he would be delighted to cosponsor their bill and live by its requirements."

He's not alone. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden said "he was inclined to do the same."

As The Nation reports, "Coburn and Vitter weren't counting on that kind of support."

"I've called their offices four times (trying to sign on as a supporter of the amendment)," Brown said Thursday. "I'm proud of the public option, I think it would be great and we ought to join it and show the country how good it is. I think my interest may be more genuine than theirs, but I'd like to work with them if they'll let me. If they just want to score partisan points, I still want to work with them."

You can bet they wish they'd never opened their mouths. They were too sure of themselves, and now the best they can do is to try to pretend Brown doesn't exist. Being studiously ignored, Brown did the only thing he could do:

On Friday, Brown went to the floor of the Senate and asked for unanimous consent to have his name added to the Coburn-Vitter amendment as a co-sponsor.

The Republican masterminds who had so deftly outsmarted themselves were forced to accept him. As The Nation says,if the other Democrat senators jump on board, we will be gauranteed a "robust, well-operated and closely scrutinized by policymakers."

Sometimes life throws you these little gems. It's left to us to savor them.

Reuters is reporting that people are becoming more optimistic about the US economy, with "Two-thirds of respondents said they approved of Obama's overall job performance."

Pretty impressive for the first hundred days, and we still have three weeks to go. Obama was handed what most people felt was an impossible job. But we all knew the real trick was changing an attitude of despair into an attitude of hopelessness. This has been Obama's strength all along, and he has once again shown his very real skills in this area. Roosevelt, I think, would be proud.

People won't spend if they're insecure about the economy, and we need to spend to turn things around.

More from the poll:

The number of people who said they thought the United States was headed in the right direction jumped from 15 percent during the final days of Republican President George W. Bush's administration in mid-January, before the inauguration, to 39 percent today, the newspaper said.

The number of respondents who said the country was headed in the wrong direction dropped to 53 percent from 79 percent.

The jump from 15% to 39% is huge, given the current state of affairs. People are still losing their jobs; businesses are still failing, but there is hope that things will get better. The seeds of improvement have been sown. Now we will have to wait to see them take root and grow.

Another telling statistic: "According to the poll, 20 percent of Americans now think the economy is getting better, compared with 7 percent in mid-January."

Also in the news is a CBS poll that shows Obama's approval rating hitting a new high - 66%.

Sixty-seven percent say world leaders respect Mr. Obama, while 18 percent say they do not respect the president. That's a sharp contrast to the response when this question was asked about Mr. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, in July 2006: Just 30 percent then said the president is respected by the leaders of other countries.

Mr. Obama's overall approval rating, meanwhile, has hit a new high of 66 percent, up from 64 percent last month. His disapproval rating stands at 24 percent. Nearly all Democrats and most independents approve of the way the president is handling his job, while only 31 percent of Republicans approve.

The complete poll is available here as a pdf file.

A Tale of Two Revolutions
The Republican Party has launched an all out crusade against any New Deal redux by attacking the New Deal on two fronts: that it is socialism and that it does not work. But is either charge true?
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/1582363/a_tale_of_two_revolutions.html

Politico is reporting that Obama has demanded that the chairman and CEO of GM, Rick Wagoner, resign. And according to Politico, he has.

Why?

Because GM wants more government money. Accusations of socialism aside, fears of government encroachment into industry aside, this should have happened at the outset of the stimulus crisis, while Bush was still in office. The fact that these people ran their businesses into the ground, the fact that it is OUR tax dollars that are being tossed at them, led me to the early conclusion that the management of any corporation that accepted our money should have to go. CEO, Board, all of them. Go. Replace them with competent people.

Everything that has followed that initial bailout has convinced me I was right. Unbridled greed, corruption and a refusal to change an entrenched philosophy that panders to further enriching the already grotesquely overpaid executives, have demonstrated that these people have not made and will not make the necessary changes for their companies to survive. They cannot continue to suck up our tax dollars and bankrupt our nation in the process while continuing with the same failed policies. Somebody had to do this. Since they wouldn't do it themselves, the government has.

It's unfortunate that it had to be, but that's the way it goes, sometimes. Nobody wanted it. Doesn't mean we don't have to do it. Today,

President Barack Obama is to unveil his plans for the auto industry, including a response to a request for additional funds by GM and Chrysler. The plan is based on recommendations from the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, headed by the Treasury Department.

The White House confirmed Wagoner was leaving at the government's behest after The Associated Press reported his immediate departure, without giving a reason.

Here is a history of the auto industries failings:

• GM and Chrysler first requested billions in federal aid in November, warning that they could run out of cash in a matter of months if they didn't receive it.


• In December, President Bush agreed to loan $9.4 billion to GM and $4 billion to Chrysler.


• Last month, GM asked for $16.6 billion more and Chrysler requested an additional $5 billion.


• Earlier this month, Obama agreed to loan $5 billion to American auto parts manufacturers to help them weather the steep drop in new vehicle orders and the financial uncertainty at the Big Three.

Why Waggoner? Politico offers two reasons:

1. First, his company is asking for the most in total federal aid: $26 billion, a figure administration officials fear could grow even larger.


2. Second, the GM chief was tied more directly to the ill-fated decisions that that brought much of the American auto industry to the brink of collapse.

According to the New York Times the government "has also instructed Chrysler to form a partnership with the Italian automaker Fiat within 30 days as conditions for receiving another much-needed round of government aid...If a deal is reached between Chrysler and Fiat, the administration says it would consider another loan of $6 billion to Chrysler."

The Huffington Post is reporting that Obama is speaking his mind with regards to Republican intransigence. I think he's nailed it:

"I do think that the Republican Party right now hasn't sort of figured out what it's for," Obama said in a White House interview with The Courier-Journal and reporters from five other newspapers. "And so, as a proxy, they've just decided 'we're going to be against whatever the other side is for.' That's not what's needed in an economic crisis."

With a big budget battle coming up and the Republicans just saying "no" to everything Obama backs, he has no choice but to accept the gauntlet that has been thrown at his feet. Remaining passive is the wrong course, and I'm glad he understands that now. He needs to get out there and rally the troops, to let America know that the Republican brand is the do-nothing brand, a brand of reactionary contrariness. As Obama put it, "you could play that game maybe in the early '90s, when basically we were pretty prosperous. Right now, everybody's got to pull together."

On a broader economic front, CNN reports that "President Obama reached out to citizens of the world Tuesday, saying in an op-ed piece that ran in 31 newspapers around the globe that there is an urgent need for worldwide economic cooperation."

Obama's move comes ahead of next week's Group of 20 meeting in London, England, in which leaders of the world's richest nations will discuss the global economic downturn.

"My message is clear," Obama wrote. "The United States is ready to lead, and we call upon our partners to join us with a sense of urgency and common purpose. Much good work has been done, but much more remains."

"Once and for all, we have learned that the success of the American economy is inextricably linked to the global economy," Obama said. "There is no line between action that restores growth within our borders and action that supports it beyond."

Deregulation was an important cause in the Bush Administration. Deregulation and the safety of the environment and of the public be damned. It cost the big businesses a lot of money to actually have to worry about what they put into circulation, after all, and nobody was a friend to the wealthy big business owners like Dubya. Obama is changing that.

On Saturday, according to Reuters, President Barack Obama chose public health and biological threat expert Dr. Margaret Hamburg to run the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "He also announced a Cabinet-level food safety group. He selected Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein to serve as Hamburg's principal deputy."

Obama also outlined measures to keep diseased cows from entering the food supply and promised to increase the number of FDA food inspectors and modernize food safety labs.

This is an important move and I am certain it is something many people are happy to see. The news of the day remains the economy, but there are many other problems that need to be addressed, many areas in which Bush's attack on the American people need to be turned back. As Reuters reports,

If confirmed by the Senate, Hamburg will take over an agency battered by a string of often deadly food poisoning and drug safety issues, including an ongoing outbreak of salmonella in peanut products that forced the largest food recall in U.S. history.

The choice signals the FDA's priority under the Obama administration will be safety and not necessarily speeding through drug approvals.

The salmonella outbreak has made 683 people in 46 states sick, killed as many as nine and forced the recall of more than 3,000 products.

Obama said outdated food safety laws were in part to blame. "Inspection and enforcement is spread out so widely among so many people that it's difficult for different parts of our government to share information, work together, and solve problems," he said.

The FDA "has been underfunded and understaffed in recent years, leaving the agency with the resources to inspect just 7,000 of our 150,000 food-processing plants and warehouses each year. That means roughly 95 percent of them go uninspected."

On an unrelated note, Obama expressed outrage at the use of stimulus funds by AIG to provide bonuses:

"This is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed," Obama told politicians and reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, where he and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner were unveiling a package to aid the nation's small businesses.

The president expressed dismay and anger over the bonuses to executives at AIG, which has received $173 billion in U.S. government bailouts over the past six months.

"Under these circumstances, it's hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay. I mean, how do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?"

Great news, obviously. AIG doesn't get it. They seem unaware that the mob is preparing to storm the Bastille. "Let them eat cake" doesn't come close to describing their arrogance. But Obama, fortunately, does. He has asked Geithner to "pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole." He also said he would work with Congress to change the laws so that such a situation cannot recur.

It is not at all surprising that the economy remains the single most important issue in the minds of Americans. Unemployment is higher than at any other time in a quarter century, and CNN, not necessarily the most balanced media outlet, suggests that there is a rift in Democratic ranks as to how the crisis should be addressed. Clearly, the myth of a "liberal media elite" touted by McCain and Palin is just that, a myth, and the media is not particularly friendly to Obama. The hate groups are out in force, and Republicans are still lining up behind Rush Limbaugh, who refuses compromise, who's motto is "stay the course". Republicans are blaming everybody for the economic crisis but themselves. Inexplicably, Bush is innocent and the blame falls squarely on a man who has been president for less than two months.

AP echoes CNN, saying

Confronting misgivings, even in his own party, President Barack Obama mounted a stout defense of his blueprint to overhaul the economy Thursday, declaring the national crisis is "not as bad as we think" and his plans will speed recovery.

Obama has gone on record as saying that the recent stimulus package would not be the last, that more would be needed. But according to AP, Nancy Pelosi refuses to make any commitment:

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., played down talk that Democrats would consider a second economic stimulus bill.

"I know that people have made suggestions that we should be ready to do something, but I really would like to see this stimulus package play out," Pelosi said. "It's just not something that, right now, is in the cards," she added later.

The Republicans are feeding fears about mounting deficits, and the burden placed on our children and on their children. Roosevelt famously said "the only thing to fear is fear itself" and I am afraid his words are still accurate. It is this fear that may prevent our government from doing what it takes to pull us out of the depression we find ourselves in.

On top of that, Obama wants to overhaul health care, reduce greenhouse-gas pollution and undertake major changes in energy policy. He's projecting a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion this year, by far the largest in history, but says he can get it down to $533 billion by 2013.

"I am not choosing to address these additional challenges just because I feel like it, or because I'm a glutton for punishment," Obama told the Business Roundtable, a group of top business executives. "I am doing so because they are fundamental to our economic growth, and to ensuring that we don't have more crises like this in the future."

I believe Obama is right. I agree with Paul Krugman that we need to be more pro-active, more aggressive, not less so, and that to date our response has been too tame, too cautious. If you start fighting a fire by pissing on it, you will soon discover that it is too late to put it out even with a firehouse, because while you were pissing, it was burning out of control.

The Administration has made clear that the stimulus already voted will be spent appropriately, and dire threats have been uttered:

Vice President Joe Biden opened the meeting by warning state officials that if they misuse money from the stimulus package, they should not expect more help from the federal government for a long time.

"If we don't get this right, folks, this is the end of the ability to convince Congress that anything should go to the states," Biden said.

Added Obama: "If we see money being misspent, we're going to put a stop to it."

I hope they are good at their word. I hope that we do not keep throwing money at Wall Street CEOs who horde it or spend it on expensive trips or to redecorate their offices. I do not think the people will put up with this for long. And I think it is quite possible that populist rage has not yet peaked.

Republicans are desperate to prove FDR's legislation, known as the New Deal, did not work. They are desperate because if it worked, it will work again - for Obama. And they do not want Obama to succeed. So, to discredit his economic plan, they seek to prove the New Deal failed to lift the country out of the Great Depression. It won't work.

Why?

Because the New Deal worked.

From DemocraticUnderground.com:

When Franklyn Roosevelt began his presidency in 1933, our nation was in the midst of the greatest depression in our history. Our annual gross domestic product had been nearly cut in half since the Stock Market Crash of three and a half years previously, and unemployment stood at 25%. Within four years of taking office, GDP rose to about 90% of where it had been prior to the Stock Market Crash. In FDR's first term in office our country experienced a 5.3% increase in jobs, the greatest percent increase in jobs of the past 20 presidential terms, from 1929 to 2009. As a result, the unemployment rate was approximately cut by more than 40% by the end of his first term. By 1941, prior to the onset of World War II, the unemployment rate had declined to below 10%.

And the New Deal was so much more than an economic policy. It was public policy. It was a revolution in thinking. And it changed America. No one questions this latter statement and I think this change is really what is at the heart of conservative hostility. Entrenched interests do not like change. And I think this is what is at the heart of conservative hostility to President Obama. He threatens the status quo. America's white masters were xenophobic, preservationist, and jealous of their position.

As Morton Keller argues ("The New Deal: A New Look," Polity 31 (1999), 657-663) the New Deal "emerged from the Great Depression and felt the need to change a dysfunctional economic order, not from a desire to preserve an older American from new social, political, and economic threats" and that "from the hindsihgt of more than half a century, we can see what emerged from the New Deal...was not renewed xenophobia and standpattism...Rather, the basic New Deal themse of a broad, inclusive, democratic cultural nationalism, and a readiness to use federal programs and deficit financing when necessary to secure prosperity and meet large domestic or international needs."

The New Deal brought positive change. It promoted the end of racism and xenophobia, "eroded anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and even, gradually, the segregation of blacks in American life." The Great Society legislation sponsored by President Lyndon B. Johnson was a continuation of the process, as Keller calls it, "an extension rather than a fresh and different political movement."

It is impossible to call the New Deal a failure unless you are part of the entrenched, xenophobic interests now represented by the Republican Party. Just as it did 60 years or more ago, the small town native-American hostility to the immigrant-filled big cities came to the fore - stoked by xenophobes like McCain and Palin and their talk of a "real" America - which is the rural, backwoods, small-town as opposed to the alien and evil big city. There were even good and bad parts of various states, according to the Republican Party, or "real" and "unreal" parts of America. This attitude is the antithesis of the New Deal.

We can argue the merits of the New Deal backwards and forwards, but we must first understand the issues. And the issue here is that the Republicans of today represent entrenched, largely white interests and the old status quo. Republican attitudes today are a reaction against the New Deal, reaction against the Great Society, and a reaction against Obama as another reformer in the mold of FDR and Johnson.

But Keller points out that the New Deal has not been a "one-party inheritance." We can look at Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System, which would have been unthinkable without the New Deal. Does anybody oppose our interstate system? Anyone? Anyone? The Space Program is another child of the New Deal - even the arms buildup of Reagan, so adored by Republicans today. You can claim he defeated the Red Menace but he defeated the Red Menace only because of a paradigm shift put into place by a progressive Democratic leadership. Reagan, too, is unthinkable in pre-New Deal terms.

Keller points out that "American politics and government in the second half of the twentieth century has been dominated not only by a rejected of the New Deal legacy, but rather by a continuing adaption, in its spirit, to the demands of a changing American society."

Of course, we have seen how Republicans even now hearken back to the halcyon days of pre-Depression America, to a yearning for small town values (and vice) over the alien landscape of the immigrant-filled big cities, to the old xenophobia which bread isolationism, and it is no surprise that it appeals mostly to white voters who feel threatened and who sense a loss of control. Opposition to the New Deal is reactionary. It always has been. The alternatives in the 30's were totalitarianism - either left or right. And of course, it is to the totalitarian model that conservatives seem to lean even today. They embraced Bush and his imperial presidency, for example. They reject Obama and accuse him of being the true totalitarian but we all know that the real reason for this is not a rejection of totalitarianism but the fact that Obama is not THEIR totalitarian. This is their chance, they seem to think, to turn back the clock and reclaim America for the white voter, for entrenched interests, and to restore some mythical golden age that never was - the myth of a Christian America with "real" values.

But that was an age when race and religion were prime determinants in whether a person deserved to be part of the community. We see this today in the Republican Party and the appeal to "small town" or "real American" values. Reject alienism, reject what is foreign and that which threatens to overturn the status quo. Is it any surprise that blacks are predominantly Democrats and that Hispanic/Latino voters abandoned the Republican cause en masse in 2008?

The New Deal saved us from this conservative pipe dream - a paradise for them but hell for anyone who fits into the category of the "Other". It was, as Keller says, not an episode but a defining moment like the Revolution "or the establishment of the new nation". It is a moment we should embrace and protect, not reject. And short-sighted conservative opponents today do not realize how much their own policies and have depended upon New Deal legislation and the paradigm shift that went with it. 1920 is gone folks. Good and gone. And good riddance. We have moved on. The world has moved on. We can't go back in time. We can't undo the New Deal - it has become part of American life. And it is so much more than economic policy. So much more.

For Further Reading: Mitch McConnell Is Wrong – The New Deal DID Work, and it Still Does

In a refreshing change of pace, President Obama took the offensive yesterday against critics of his budget plan. Rather than leaving the initiative to his opponents and critics, he came right out and accused them of being allies of lobbyists and special interests more interested in preserving corporate tax breaks (part of the Republican platform, IMHO) than reviving the economy.

"I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they're gearing up for a fight as we speak." Obama said. "My message to them is this: So am I."

Of course, the lobbyists are acting surprised and shocked. They're innocent victims of course. The bastards have controlled Washington for decades. Bills get passed that favor them, not the environment, them, not the individual. We all suffer so that a few can enrich themselves. I think Obama finally gets it, that populist rage is real and lasting. The lobbyists don't. But they soon will. And I suspect they will see Obama's popularity rise as a result.

"I know that the insurance industry won't like the idea that they'll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage," Obama said. "I know that banks and big student lenders won't like the idea that we're ending their huge taxpayer subsidies. ... I know that oil and gas companies won't like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks."

He wisely named the least popular lobbying groups, and that is sure to rally the troops. It is difficult (unless you are a Republican and therefore too ideologically blinkered to comprehend basic facts) to justify the lobbying efforts of these big corporations. The Right will try of course, because they are owned by these groups as well as by the Fundamentalist Christians, but I don't think they'll have enough support to hurt Obama. The GOP already refuses to work with him. He knows this now. How can they do any worse than they already have by withdrawing from government and taking their toys home?

I think Obama understands that he has a mandate from the people, and that mandate has actually grown since the election, despite a steadily worsening economy. Yet he understands the opposition he faces: "I realize that passing this budget won't be easy," Obama said. "Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington."

And while he will have the American people with him, he will find the Media firmly aligned with the status quo. As Media Matters for America repeatedly points out, there is no liberal media elite, and the American people will have to work hard to get unfiltered, unbiased news.

In other news, CNN reports that "Iraqi leaders are applauding President Obama's plan to withdraw most U.S. troops from the country by August 2010."

raq's Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi's office released a statement Saturday saying he received a call from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informing him of Obama's announcement of the withdrawal.

"Mr. al-Hashimi welcomed the American administration's commitment to withdrawing its troops from Iraq according to the agreed-on schedule and stressed that every possible effort should be exerted to increase the readiness of Iraqi security forces and improve their performance," the statement said.

Lets get informed and rational about this stimulus plan!

read more | digg story

Full transcript here

Here is a plan the Obama administration will absolutely NOT support: a mileage tax. Secretary Ray LaHood of the Transportation Department had earlier called it an idea "we should look at." Typically Republican:

Speaking to The Associated Press, Transportation Secretary LaHood, an Illinois Republican, said, "We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled." The remark was part of a discussion about various options to help make up for the highway funding shortfall on the federal level.

Just crazy. Why would anyone think this is a good idea? CNN reports:

In a written statement, the department said, "The policy of taxing motorists based on how many miles they have traveled is not and will not be Obama administration policy."

The idea -- which involves tracking drivers through Global Positioning System (GPS) units in their cars -- is gaining support in some states as a way of making up for a shortfall in highway funding. Oregon carried out a pilot program and deemed it "successful."

This is how it would have worked, according to the report:

Under a VMT (vehicle miles traveled) tax program, GPS units would allow the government to keep track of how much each car is driven and where -- though not necessarily with exact street locations. The government could also track other things, including the time each car enters a certain zone.

I can understand the reasoning behind a program such as this - funding our infrastructure, and apparently helping the environment and reducing reliance on foreign fuel hurts the cause because with consumers buying less gas, the government takes in less money. "Last fall, Congress approved an $8 billion infusion into the depleted federal highway trust fund," CNN tells us. Unsurprisingly, people were not enthused by the idea. There are privacy issues, for one thing. Do we really need the government looking over our shoulder as we drive and watching our movements?

There has to be a better way, and I'm sure something will be found. Some possible solutions have already been suggested:

• tolls


• higher registration fees


• and other types of taxes

The Republicans complaining about big government will no doubt fail to take notice of this action by the Obama administration. They will find something else to attack and if there is nothing else to attack, they will invent something. Welcome to 2009, my friends. The loyal opposition is not so loyal after all.

Here is a great new site, further evidence that Obama is returning transparency to government. Despite repeated GOP claims that things are being hidden, Obama is making unprecedented efforts to put information in front of the readers and viewers. There is no reason in the world any American must remain ignorant about what the government is doing. It's not his fault Rush Limbaugh can't figure out how to search a pdf file! As Media Matters reported on February 13th:

Summary: Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that Democrats "have reformatted the [economic recovery] bill -- they've made it a PDF file when they posted it. ... And, so, you can read every page, but you cannot keyword search it. It's not a text file as legislation normally is as posted on these public websites. They don't want anybody knowing what's in this." In fact, as Adobe Systems notes of PDFs: "You can run a search using either the Search window or the Find toolbar. In either case, Reader searches the PDF body text, layers, form fields, and digital signatures."

Yes...incredible, isn't it? The voice of the GOP can't use a pdf file. No surprise given how anti-science and anti-intellectual both Rush and his party are. But on to the great site I mentioned above: Recovery.gov. The site, we are told, will offer:

• Education: Explain the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act;


• Transparency: Show how, when, and where the money is spent;


• Accountability: Provide data that will allow citizens to evaluate the Act’s progress and provide feedback.

The site tells us:

The site will include information about Federal grant awards and contracts as well as formula grant allocations. Federal agencies will provide data on how they are using the money, and eventually, prime recipients of Federal funding will provide information on how they are using their Federal funds. On our end, we will use interactive graphics to illustrate where the money is going, as well as estimates of how many jobs are being created, and where they are located. And there will be search capability to make it easier for you to track the funds.

The first incarnation of Recovery.gov features projections for how, when, and where the funds will be spent -- which states and sectors of the economy are due to receive what proportion of the funds. As money starts to flow, far more data will become available.

I look forward to more information being posted on this site. I wish Bush had thought to put some controls in place before he left office instead of finding new and interesting ways to screw Obama and booby trap his administration. At least there is some accountability now as well as transparency! This is a positive step. It's not that the plan is perfect, it's not that Obama and his team haven't slipped up. But they're under such pressure and the GOP is applying a magnifying glass to every little action, making a stink about everything and lying abundantly about it at the same time.

The Denver Post reports that President Obama signed the stimulus bill into law today in Denver, the city where the Democratic National Convention was held.

"We're putting Americans to work doing the work that America needs done in critical areas that have been neglected too long," Obama said before a crowd of about 250 people at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. "We are remaking the American landscape."

And Obama is keeping busy. "Just after 3 p.m., Obama departed from Buckley Air Force Base aboard Air Force One. His next stop is Phoenix, where tomorrow he will address the housing crisis."

How much good it will do, now that the GOP has gutted it of its most useful features, only time will tell. Nobody is expecting immediately relief. And everyone is in agreement that it's going to get worse before it gets better. The sad thing is that this is only the first step. It will take more than this single package to right the boat and the Republicans will obstruct every bill that does not consist almost entirely of tax cuts for the rich. I really hope the American people have awoken and remember this betrayal by the GOP come 2010. Speaking of which...

Let's look at something really vile and disgusting. It is well known that only three Republicans voted for the stimulus. Those three have a right to appreciate openly what Obama is trying to do. The others, obviously, are hypocrities if they do. That, however, does not stop them according to this report:

Rep. John Mica was gushing after the House of Representatives voted Friday to pass the big stimulus plan.

"I applaud President Obama's recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America's future," the Florida Republican beamed in a press release.

Yet Mica had just joined every other GOP House member in voting against the $787.2 billion economic recovery plan.

But Mica wasn't alone in touting what he saw as the bill's virtues. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, also had nice things to say in a press release.

Young boasted that he "won a victory for the Alaska Native contracting program and other Alaska small business owners last night in H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act."

One provision would have made it harder for minority businesses to win contracts, and Young explained that he "worked with members on the other side of the aisle to make the case for these programs, and was able to get the provision pulled from the bill."

Their justification is as flimsy as their morals:

Mike Steel, a spokesman for House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio, at first ducked when asked about Mica and Young issuing press releases praising the bill they'd opposed.

"I don't work for Mica or Young," Steel said initially.

But then he explained that what Mica and Young did in touting aspects of the bill was in fact consistent with the Republican message.

"Being supportive of one portion of a trillion dollar bill, but voting against the entire trillion dollar bill, is perfectly reasonable," Steel said.

TampaBay.com is asking the question, "Is Governor Charlie Crist a statesman or a sellout?"

It's clear what the Republican party believes. Get this statement of ignorance:

"I don't think he's helped any national Republican ambitions he may have by stepping up to the plate and batting for the other team. … There's a difference between working in a bipartisan way for the common good and switching sides and putting on the other team's jersey," said veteran Republican consultant Alex Castellanos. "At the one moment when we've finally found our voice and remember who we are as Republicans, Charlie Crist forgets. It's stunning."

Alex: WE ARE AMERICANS.

But that seems to be the lesson lost on the Republican Party of 2009.

Crist's full-throated support evoked a rare rebuke from one of his closest political allies, Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, who said on the Senate floor that Crist didn't get it.

"I don't know that my governor understands all the details of this package — that there will be nothing here to help with Florida's housing economy," Martinez said stressing the need for more tax cuts.

For his part, Charlie Crist is unapologetic. He says his state needs help. Period.

Good for him. He is doing right by his constituents. They put him there to take care of them, and he is trying. I hope they recognize this.

This is Republicanism's embrace of the Christian "other":

"They may not be saying it outright, but the Republican delegation is very angry. If they got Charlie Crist in a dark alley, all you'd have left is a tuft of white hair," said Ana Navarro, a Republican consultant from Miami, suggesting Crist has dampened enthusiasm for a potential Senate run in 2010.

The article does well to let Charlie Crist have the last word. He is, after all, the man under the microscope, and he deserves to speak for himself:

Presumably Crist won't be among those running against that bill. But if the governor has any misgivings about the politics of appearing with Obama, he sure isn't showing it.

"My concern is not about what's best for one party or the other. My concern is what's best for the state and what's best for the people of Florida," he said Thursday, when he invited a mostly Democratic group of African-American legislators to the Governor's Mansion to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the NAACP and the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth.

"This is our president, and I wanted to show support for what he's trying to do, to help our students in the classroom, the most vulnerable in our society who deserve health care and the infrastructure benefit that this will bring about," Crist said.

The news continues to be filled with Republican attempts to discredit Obama's stimulus plan. They've even tried to claim that FDR's New Deal did not work, though it can be statistically proven. But facts never get in the way when you're an ideologue, and the Republicans have proven that they will not cooperate, will not compromise, and will not even try to work with Obama. They would rather see the country ruined than see a Democrat succeed. I hope Obama wakes up to this fact sooner rather than later.

Still, the stimulus package should pass both houses of Congress. There is enough support for it now that it's been watered down. Of course, the Republicans, having pretty much eliminated, or at least greatly reduced, the possibility that it will help, will then claim that it's Obama's fault and call for a change in Washington. I do not believe their tactic will work. They are discredited after eight years of Bush and it will take more than this to unseat Obama and the Democrat majorities in Congress.

Reuters reports that

Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on Thursday wrapped up a last minute tax cut and spending details in the $789 billion economic stimulus bill, setting votes for Friday by both chambers.

The House is scheduled to vote Friday morning and the Senate plans to follow in the evening, but that vote could take a few hours to accommodate a Democratic senator who has to return home after the death of a family member.

Both chambers are expected to approve it which would meet a deadline set by President Barack Obama to approve the emergency spending and tax cut package before the end of the upcoming holiday weekend.

Another sign that Republicans will not work with Obama is that Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) has withdrawn his nomination to be Commerce Secretary - he says because of disagreements over the stimulus plan. Disgusting, but not at all surprising. And three Republicans who voted for the plan have been vilified by their own party and a call has been made to unseat them.

Reuters also released a "Factbox" detailing the provisions of the stimulus package.

FOR WORKERS, CONSUMERS AND RETIREES

* A "making work pay" refundable tax credit championed by President Barack Obama of up to $400 per individual and $800 for couples in 2009 and 2010. It is calculated at a rate of 6.2 percent of earned income and is phased out for individuals with adjusted incomes over $75,000 and couples with incomes over $150,000.

* A one-time payment of $250 to Social Security beneficiaries, railroad retirees and veterans receiving benefits from the Veterans Affairs department. State government retirees not eligible for Social Security would also get the $250 payment.

* Increases the earned income tax credit for low-income workers with three or more children.

* Increases eligibility for the refundable child tax credit to more low-income workers. The bill reduces the income floor to $3,000 in 2009 and 2010 from the current floor of $8,500.

* Provides a new $2,500 tax credit for college education expenses. The credit phases out for individuals earning more than $80,000 and couples with incomes over $160,000.

* Provides an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers for homes purchased between January 1 and December 1, 2009. The tax credit phases out for individuals earning more than $75,000 and couples earning more than $150,000.

* Provides temporary relief from the alternative minimum tax for millions of middle-class taxpayers who otherwise would be ensnared by the tax originally meant for the very wealthy.

The bill provides for $282 billion in tax cuts. This is far less than the Democrats wanted but much more than the country can bear. I'm worried. And I'm far from alone.

Sarah Robinson of Campaign for America's Future writes about the effect of the tax cuts so loved by Republicans. I agree with her 100%:

The past 20 years has taught us two hard new truths about tax cuts that conservatives have yet to internalize. The first one is: Tax cuts directed at the wealthy don't create new wealth. Larry Beinert has run the numbers that show that, going all the way back to the 1920s, economic growth correlates absolutely perfectly with high marginal tax rates on the rich. The higher the top tax bracket, the better the U.S economy does. This happens so reliably that we probably need to consider it a bit of settled economic wisdom.

The second truth is: What tax cuts do create—better than anything else you can name—is economic bubbles. It doesn't take long before you've got too many rich people with too much capital chasing too few real investment opportunities. When they can't find places to park their excess cash, they start gambling with it. In the 1630s, it was tulips. In the 1990s, it was dot-com stocks. In this decade, they turned to flipping houses and stashing it in hedge funds.

Of course, con men and scam artists (paging Bernie Madoff) thrive in the overheated, gravity-free, anything-goes casino atmosphere that follows. Worse, a whole lot of paper "wealth" gets created that doesn't have any real-world basis of value. Eventually, the bubble overinflates and pops, taking that phony "wealth" with it. And this happens every single time we cut taxes on the rich below the 50 percent threshold.

Tax breaks were one of the main reasons we got into this pit. More tax breaks will not get us out of it. And the conservatives need to let go of that shattered fantasy, and move on.

I was watching Obama this morning, speaking to a Town Hall gathering in Florida. He told the crowd, "I'm not going to tell you that this plan is perfect. I mean, it was produced in Washington." The crowd laughed. I like this president. He speaks to people, not down to them like Bush.

I'm glad to see that he has gone on the offensive, selling his plan to the American people after days of putting up with Republican propaganda and obstructionism. As I always say, if you let the other side control the terms of the debate, you also let them control its outcome. The past few days are proof of that. I just hope Obama did not wait too long to take the offensive. He pointed out to the crowd that, "there was still work to be done to reconcile differences between the Senate version and a $819 billion bill passed earlier by the House of Representatives."

Huffington Post reports that the Senate has passed the stimulus bill.

Just three Republicans helped pass the plan on a 61-37 vote and they're already signaling they'll play hardball to preserve more than $108 billion in spending cuts made last week in Senate dealmaking. Obama wants to restore cuts in funds for school construction jobs and help for cash-starved states.

In Washington,

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled a bank rescue plan to remove up to $500 billion in bad assets and support $1 trillion in lending.

But the stock market, hoping for more details, tanked on the news.

"Wall Street, I think, is hoping for an easy out on this thing and there is no easy out," Obama told ABC News in an interview, adding the problem was caused by some banks whose books were not as transparent as they should have been.

They're saying more banks will fail. I've seen it suggested that people switch to credit unions where their money will be safer. These are truly frightening times, and nobody knows just how bad things are going to get. The International Monetary Fund has already said that the U.S. is in a depression. Now, I can honestly say I never imagined I'd live to see a depression. I grew up on horror stories from the first one. My mother was born one year before, in 1928, and her first years were spent during the Great Depression. She never got over it. She was very frugal. The same with my father. Neither lived to see this second depression, and I hope that this one will not earn the sobriquet "Great". I find it interesting that we did not quite make a century without this happening again.

Reuters reports that the stimulus bill has narrowly cleared the Senate:

The U.S. Senate on Monday moved a step closer toward approving President Barack Obama's plan to jolt the U.S. economy out of recession with government spending and tax breaks, setting up a vote to pass the $838 billion emergency package on Tuesday.

After a week of contentious debate, senators reached a deal to pare down the stimulus bill by about $100 billion and voted 61-36, with minimal Republican support, that it was time to hold a final ballot at 12:00 p.m. EST Tuesday.

What happens next, if the bill passes the final vote tomorrow, is that "the Senate and House of Representatives will enter final negotiations on a compromise bill, with Obama arbitrating disputes." There is some slight hope that some of the impact of the bill can be restored before it's signed into law, but the chances do not appear promising given Republican opposition. Even after all the negotiations that have taken place, only three Republicans voted for passage today - Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter.

According to Reuters, "Obama wants the stimulus legislation on his desk for signing into law by this weekend in the hope that it will begin to create and save up to 4 million jobs."

Obama's approval rating, according to a new Gallup Poll, is at 67%, quite a bit higher than Republicans would like to admit (in fact, most of those I've run into on Digg refuse to accept so high a figure - they insist Obama's popularity is slipping). According to Gallup:

President Obama receives a 67% approval rating for his handling of the government’s efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill, compared to 31% for the Republicans in Congress. A majority of Americans (51%) agree that passing such a bill is critically important to improving the nation’s economy.

Another bit of good news on the horizon that deserves mention is the possibility of an investigation into what went on during the Bush administration. According to Reuters,

A U.S. "truth commission" should investigate Bush administration policies including the promotion of war in Iraq, detainee treatment and wiretapping without a warrant, an influential senator proposed on Monday.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, urged a commission as a way to heal what he called sharp political divides under former President George W. Bush and to prevent future abuses.

He compared it to other truth commissions, such as one in South Africa that investigated the apartheid era.

Though, of course, Republicans are against the possibility, Leahy is correct in saying an investigation must be made:

"We need to come to a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past," Leahy said in a speech at Georgetown University.

"Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened," the Vermont senator said. "And we do that to make sure it never happens again."