CNN is reporting a $780 BN deal on the stimulus. No details reported (e.g. how much was taken out in tax cuts and how much spending -- what type of spending, etc.)

NYTimes says "close to a deal" and pegs the number at $800 billion. Of course, in a legislative conference, the numbers could back up to 900 billion, tax cuts could be added, removed, spending added or removed. This whole game that Ben Nelson and his fellow Beltway "bipartisan" BSers played is pretty shameless. As the Times states:

Once the Senate votes on the package, differences between the Senate legislation and a considerably different version passed recently by the House would have to be reconciled. President Obama has said he hopes all that can be accomplished in time for him to sign the measure within 10 days.

Just another inning, as they say.

I know you might be getting tired of my obsession with the economic stimulus, but I can't help it. In any event, it seems to me that the Democrats are getting their act together. On CNN right now, David Axelrod, when asked by Wolf Blitzer "what was more important, bipartisanship or passing a bill," Axelrod said "this is not a process question," the issue is economic recovery.

Speaker Pelosi echoed that thought:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Friday dismissed calls for bipartisanship as “process” arguments extraneous to passing a stimulus bill — and warned Senate Democrats against slashing proposed increases to education spending.

And Leader Reid is also in the fray:

This is a shrewd move from Senate Majority Leader Reid:

Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME), one of the four Republicans considered genuinely open to cooperation with Democrats on a workable economic recovery bill, just released a statement saying she was approached by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to come up with a list of trims from the $275 billion-plus tax section of the stimulus[:]

I was approached this morning and asked to work directly with leadership to amend the tax section of the stimulus bill in order to develop compromise language that could pass the Senate. The total reductions sought by leadership will closely resemble the amount I recommended to the President during our meeting on Wednesday. This is a critical time for our nation.

[More...]

Commenting on Atrios' point on the false idea of "centrism," Krugman writes:

[C]entrism is a pose rather than a philosophy. And to support that pose, the centrists are demanding $100 billion in cuts in the economic stimulus plan — not because they have any coherent argument saying that the plan is $100 billion too big, not because they can identify $100 billion of stuff that should not be done, but in order to be able to say that they forced Obama to move to the center.

As a self admitted Centrist poseur, this is what shocks me - that anyone thinks of "centrism" as anything but a pose. But then "post-partisanship" is just a schtick. But it harms policy if the person doing the schtick does not realize it. Now Obama is saying ALL the right things, and I am happy for it, but is the damage already done? Krugman asks:

At least one Beltway "bipartisan" BSer has woken up from the never-neverland where Beltway gasbags reside:

The Marine Corps’ 1st Division has a macho motto: “No Better Friend. No Worse Enemy.” President Barack Obama could use a little of that Clint Eastwood-style bravura now as he bargains with Republicans over the stimulus package and tries to establish momentum and credibility for his new administration.

[MORE . . .]

Devastating jobs numbers:

The country moved into its second year of uninterrupted job losses last month, with companies shedding another 598,000 jobs and the unemployment rate moving up to 7.6 percent, the Labor Department reported on Friday. . . . Employers in the United States have shed jobs every month since January 2008, for an aggregate decline in payroll employment of 3.1 million.

While the Beltway "bipartisan" BSers fiddle, anyone sentient and living in this world knows we need bold and substantial government intervention:

Mika Brzezinski of the entertainment network MSNBC just asked that question about the economic stimulus plan. These people live in another world. The Beltway "bipartisan" BSers do not get it. At all. Apparently, Paul Krugman was on Morning Joe today. I did not see it so I do not know if he told them:

It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world. . . . [M]ost economic forecasts warn that in the absence of government action we’re headed for a deep, prolonged slump. . . . The Congressional Budget Office . . . recently warned that “absent a change in fiscal policy ... the shortfall in the nation’s output relative to potential levels will be the largest — in duration and depth — since the Depression of the 1930s.”

(Emphasis supplied.) There is no time for vacuous ignorant Beltway fiddling. The nation's economy is melting. That's the rush Mika.

Speaking for me only

I again associate myself with the views of the Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman:

Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.

So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

(Emphasis supplied.) Speaking for me only

In some other dimension:

Productivity was increasing at the end of last year at three times the expected pace while labor costs slowed significantly, underscoring that a deepening recession has taken away the threat of inflation. . . . Before the financial crisis hit with ferocity last fall, the Federal Reserve had begun to worry that rising inflation could become a problem threatening the economy. . . .

Buried in the AP story?

In another report, the government said that new jobless claims jumped far more than expected last week in an already dismal labor market and that there was no relief in sight for workers as mass layoffs persist.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, Paul Krugman describes the deflationary threat:

While the Beltway "Bipartisan" BSers fiddle, the nation's economy is melting:

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits jumped to a 26-year high last week, according to government data on Thursday that pointed to a rapid deterioration in the economy.

. . . [I]nitial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits rose 35,000 to a seasonally adjusted 626,000 in the week ended January 31, the highest since the week ending October 30, 1982. The prior week's number was revised up to 591,000 from 588,000. . . . The four-week moving average for new claims, considered to be a better gauge of underlying trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, rose to 582,250, the highest reading since the week ending December 4, 1982.

Time to act, NOW.

Speaking for me only

In the WaPo today, President Barack Obama writes:

What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.

Is the economic stimulus plan looking bold and wise enough (on the swift part, Obama is trying)? Obama's opening proposal was too timid and not near enough to stem the tide of this economic calamity imo. But it is better than nothing I suppose. Of course, Fred Hiatt and the WaPo Editorial Board and the typical Beltway "bipartisan" BSers not only feel no sense of urgency -- they simply have no grasp of the magnitude of the problem:

David Sanger does a good job of reporting the story:

The Senate, at the urging of White House officials, agreed Wednesday night to water down some of the “Buy America” provisions in its version of the $900 billion economic stimulus bill. The vote gave President Obama a victory in the first test of how he will balance his campaign promises to toughen protections for American workers against a storm of protests by American trading partners who have threatened retaliation.

The White House had been seeking assurances that any requirements barring purchases from abroad did not significantly expand existing law or violate existing trade treaties. The language approved by the Senate said such provisions should be “applied in a manner consistent with United States obligations under international agreements.”

(Emphasis supplied.) So Buy America will stay in place as it exists - with preferences for US goods, unless we have reciprocal agreements with other countries. So what was this really all about? US steel and iron producers, who apparently need bigger preferences: