Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

The Senate passed the stimulus bill late Friday night and the NY Times reports it was the longest congressional vote in history.

Hopefully, President Obama and the Dems learned that Republicans are not their friends.

The House vote was 246 to 183, with just 7 Democrats joining all 176 Republicans in opposition. In the Senate, the vote, 60 to 38, was similarly partisan. Only 3 centrist Republicans joined 55 Democrats and 2 independents in favor.

What took so long? [More...]

So A Sullivan tells us:

The great tragedy of the Gregg withdrawal is that this was precisely what he had been selected to achieve. The chance of real entitlement reform - the one thing that can indeed put the US back on a path to fiscal sanity - is real in the first year of an Obama presidency. . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Gregg vote for every Bush budget that destroyed our fiscal house? Also correct me if I am wrong, but weren't there budget surpluses (in the hundreds of billions of dollars if memory serves) when a certain William Jefferson Clinton left the White House? More . . .

Here are the final numbers of grants to law enforcement for lock em up programs:

• Violence against women prevention and prosecution programs $225,000,000
• Southern border and high-intensity drug trafficking areas $30,000,000
• ATF Project Gunrunner $10,000,000
• Internet crimes against children initiatives $50,000,000
• Rural drug crime program $125,000,000
• Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants $1,000,000,000
• Justice Department salaries and expenses for administration of police grant programs $10,000,000
• Office of Justice Programs state and local law enforcement assistance (Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants) $2,000,000,000

A lot of people will be talking about Krugman's column:

Obama got more or less what he asked for, he almost certainly didn’t ask for enough. We’re probably facing the worst slump since the Great Depression. The Congressional Budget Office, not usually given to hyperbole, predicts that over the next three years there will be a $2.9 trillion gap between what the economy could produce and what it will actually produce. And $800 billion, while it sounds like a lot of money, isn’t nearly enough to bridge that chasm.

A Times editorial chimes in:

Strange:

New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg has withdrawn his name from consideration as President Barack Obama's Commerce Secretary, a major blow to an Administration seeking to put a series of Cabinet problems behind it. "It has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the census there are irresolvable conflicts for me," Gregg said in a statement to be released by his office. "Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns."

What in Gawd's name did they focus on? To be honest, the Commerce Secreatary is a meaningless post, so it was an empty gesture from Obama in the first place. And what Gregg was thinking is still not apparent. In any event, not a big deal, imo, either way.

Speaking for me only

I pummel the Media all the time. I think it is only fair that we throw some kudos at good analysis, both on substance and politics, when it comes. Richard Stevenson of the NYTimes delivers both in his article for tomorrow's paper:

While it hammered home the reality of bigger, more activist government, the economic package was not the culmination of a hard-fought ideological drive, like Lyndon B. Johnson’s civil rights and Great Society programs, or Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, but rather a necessary and hastily patched-together response to an immediate and increasingly dire situation. On the domestic issues Mr. Obama ran and won on — health care, education, climate change, rebalancing the distribution of wealth — the legislation does little more than promise there will be more to come.

[More . . .]

If it is a deal, then the Congress is preparing to pass an inadequate $719 billion stimulus, with an add on adjustment of the Alternative Minimum Tax that will have no stimulative effect. The size of this proposal, in addition to its composition, makes it wholly inadequate for the task. It is much much worse than the House bill. Some details:

Despite intense lobbying by governors, the final deal slashed $35 billion from a proposed state fiscal stabilization fund, eliminated $16 billion in aid for school construction and sharply curtailed health care subsidies for the unemployed.

Slashing the most effective stimulus proposed while including non-stimulative tax cuts is proof positive that this bill is quite a mess, with no purpose driving it. Some claim that this is the deal Obama always wanted. If they are correct, then that is probably the biggest problem we have, a President unwilling to take the bold necessary action needed to address our economic calamity.

Speaking for me only

Bizarre at best:

Senate negotiators announced on Wednesday an agreement on a $789 billion economic stimulus bill, apparently clearing the way for final Congressional action and President Obama’s signature. But House conferees were not so quick to endorse the package.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not present at the news conference, even though Mr. Reid praised her effusively for her role in the talks, and House Democrats were reportedly holding out for some changes important to them, including more money for school renovations. Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for the Speaker, said later that “I think we’re moving very rapidly toward making an announcement of a deal.”

Um, okaay.

Via Yglesias:

U.S. Rep. Steve Austria [R] told The Dispatch editorial board that . . . “When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression[.] . . . “He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That’s just history.”

This snark comment in the thread cracked me up, and actually made as much sense as the doofus GOP congressman - "Actually, FDR caused the Great Depression by pumping into circulation millions of dimes with his face on them."

When some of us say that President Obama should have asked for much much more in his opening stimulus proposal, this is why:

[T]he centrists continue[] to demand more reductions. . . . Other reductions are likely in a $15,000 tax credit for all home purchases in the next year as well as a tax credit for the purchase of new cars, both of which were added to the Senate bill after little debate. House Democrats have objected to wholesale deletions from their original bill during the Senate debate, but they are likely to see some return of aid to states that their plan priced at $79 billion. The Senate reduced that figure to $39 billion, while it also zeroed out a fund that would finance school construction, another priority for which House Democrats are pushing to restore funds.

(Emphasis supplied.) There was never any rational thought process from "the Centrists" on this. No underlying thought or plan. It was always going to be "The Price Is Right" with these fools. Cuz that's how Broder designed this game. If you understood the game, you would have known to ask for more so that when "the Centrists" came in, they would do less damage.

Speaking for me only

While the "Senate moderates" gutted the stimulus in the stimulus package while embracing Republican tax cut pork, in the country there is severe economic pain. The Governor of Ohio Ted Strickland expresses his frustration with the "Senate moderates":

Gov. Ted Strickland says the $827 billion stimulus package the Senate is expected to approve today would be "hugely harmful" to Ohio. Because the revamped measure reduces money for states, it now threatens Ohio with a tuition increase for 40 percent of public-college students, the loss of thousands of state- and local-government jobs, closure of two "medium-sized" prisons, and 50,000 fewer people receiving mental-health services, the governor said yesterday.

While embracing GOP tax cut pork, the "Senate moderates" are blocking real stimulus where it is needed. It is disgraceful

Speaking for me only