Obama's gone and put a Band-Aid on cancer.

He talked a lot about repairing America's infrastructure, but hasn't done a damned thing.

We got change alright... I got 1,000 quarters!

Note to the disagree folks:

I must confess I didn't really get 1000 quarters from the administration. They gave me a cheque, and I had to make my own change.

Problem here is that there is no stimulus. The most optimistic projections say that twelve cents of every dollar will go towards something positive. The rest is waste- pure pork. This is the kind of thing Bush would have been tarred and feathered for, and rightfully so. This however is Obama, so it has to be a "good thing".
As to the partisanship issue, ask yourself why Obama made such a spectacle of trying to get Republicans on board. As the vote showed, he needed no votes from the opposition party to get this passed in the House.
Now we have 9.5% unemployment, a deficit that is up 50%, and inflation on the way.
Nice job, your lordship.

Over 2,000,000 jobs lost since the stimulus was passed.

This is very significant because it shows that we really are not represented in by our government. Despite the majority of people not wanting it to go through they passed it anyway. The American people no longer matter to the representatives.

It seems that our culture of instant gratification and general self-interest has resulted in some rather unrealistic expectations of how momentum works on a scale this grand.

That aside, I'm concerned about the fate of the Stimulus Plan in light of recent developments with TARP and Goldman Sachs' attempts to circumvent the crackdown on the restrictions therein related to (Toxic) bonus structures.

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I think of this stimulus, all I think of are all the JOBS its created. From Upstate New York to West Virginia to Ohio to Detroit. Way to go! That's all I read about in the newspapers are all the jobs the stimulus has created and how great the economy is. I have employers knocking on my door....I can't even sleep at night. Geesh, I bet Joe Biden and Rush Limbaugh finally get their brain transplants w/the stimulus money....oh and let's not forget, more prostitutes for Larry Craig and Eliot Spitzer with the added stimulus funds. Way to go stimulus, I salute you!! Oh and don't forget the financial bailouts that both the Republicans and Democrats so keenly voted for last year. Guess who was in the top three in AIG contributions: McCain and Obama.

From what I heard it has quite a bit of junk and perhaps a bit of pork in it. Welcome to the blank check congress, kids.

UPDATE: If "pro" and "con" are opposites, does that make progress the opposite of Congress?

Speaking as a Canadian, let me sound a note of warning against the restrictive "Buy American" provisions in the House bill, and more importantly in the Senate bill. One does not lightly cast trade agreements aside, particularly with major trading partners. It will do the administration or Congress, or the American people little good to provoke a trade war with major economic players. While I have no faith in the Canadian government to play hardball on this issue, they certainly could invoke provisions of NAFTA which would have dire economic consequences for the U.S.

It is all very well to play the biggest bully on the block, when you are, but when there are other players, it is best to be careful. Economically, the U.S. doesn`t have the clout it once had, and taking a high hand with long time allies and trade partners is a risky approach.

What's wrong with disagreeing about how to handle the economy? Partisanship seems to be the new 4-letter word, but opposition and alternate proposals are a good thing. It's how a reasonable democracy should work. What, should we just eliminate all opposition and allow Obama to pass his program with all due haste? No! Who crowned Obama king anyways?

I've already commented on this extensively over the past few weeks, but I will say that this stimulus package might produce unintended consequences that a lot of policy-makers are now downplaying. The big concern should be inflation--here's the deal. The bailouts, along with this massive stimulus program is flooding the system with cash. Here are some interesting numbers, from 2000-2007, the total money supply increased on average $351 billion a year. In 2008, it increased by $691 billion, and that's before the the second wave of TARP funds hit the market. That number's final tabulation will no doubt be higher.

Short term, this massive increase in the monetary supply won't cause inflation; it only makes up for the money that was lost during the market crash. But when the market starts to grow again, which I anticipate will be soon, as the market is no longer in free for all like it has been over the past few months, inflation will become the main driver in the economy. In short, there will be too much money chasing too few goods. This indicates an inflationary environment, where the price of goods, services and other assets starts going up. Such a situation will be painful for everyone, and it will most likely precipitate an even deeper recession in a few years.

Now the politicians are putting forward a trillion dollar stimulus plan that promises to benefit select interest groups (the Hollywood film industry, for example, is getting a $200 million subsidy; this is a key Democratic party constituency), along with the banks, the insurance companies, the car companies and other failed businesses. This bill is, in part, a massive payout for various party constituencies--this is pure partisan politics, not based on sound policy.

Obama's people are claiming that this will produce 3-4 million jobs, but the reality is that these are strictly "rule of thumb" numbers, meaning that they are optimistic expectations. None of the economists have any idea as to how many jobs will be produced from this bill. So the idea is to spend over a trillion dollars to produce a few million dollars? That doesn't strike me as the most efficient way to use taxpayer dollars? Estimates vary, but that would mean that we're spending anywhere from $170,000 to $350,000 PER JOB! Folks, lets do the math here, is this the best way to allocate funds?

As I've pointed out before, the first thing we need to do is restore confidence in the capital markets. Once that happens, we won't need a massive stimulus bill. Policy makers don't seem to realize that the problem is not liquidity, rather it is a question of CONFIDENCE in the market. Tax cuts or government spending won't solve the problem or even make it better. Both the Keynesian's and the Monetarists don't have the correct answers here.

Significant for the wrong reasons. I'm sure President Obama's buddies at ACORN will get quite a stimulus from their cut, but otherwise there isn't much stimulus here.

Wanting a wad of cash to fix what his supporters trashed at The National Mall, closing Gitmo with no apparent plan for what to do next, sending a wad of cash to Africa for abortions, and spending almost a trillion dollars on a stimulus plan that doesn't stimulate much of anything and has more pork than Jimmy Dean.

Gee, good thing this guy is a centrist.

Spreading around this enormous pile of money plundered from future taxpayers and citizens of this country, not yet born, stimulates the hell out of me! The shade of Old Man Mayor Daley and the ghosts of the minions of the Chicago Machine, who continue to vote years after their funerals, must be mighty proud of Barack Hussein.

I agree that the depressing thing about this was the total partisanship of the vote.

As far as the stimulus plan itself, the numbers are huge, and folks should be worried about spending this much cash.

That being said, this is economics / government 101. When the private sector is going into deep recession, it's the role of government to make up for the disappearing private demand with public spending. It's pretty clear now that this is the worst shape the global economy has been in for decades.

And given that our infrastructure like our power grid and our bridges are in pretty bad shape, this would seem like a great time to invest in these areas - creating public sector jobs to make up for the lost private sector ones, as well as building the foundation for economic growth on the back of these infrastructure investments.

The devil, of course, is in the details. Evaluating the projects properly. Keeping the pork out. And curtailing spending when the threat of economic melt down is over.

I agree with the economics behind the stimulus far more than the economics behind bailing out failing businesses such at the auto makers. Quick, decisive action by the government now can save the US years of a prolonged recession.

But I am not confident in a young administration's ability to be ruthless in separating the true infrastructure projects from the payday for the sake of payday that many are expecting.

The story here is that the vote was strictly along party lines, despite all of the talk that each side has made recently about bi-partisanship. The reality with our elected officials is that they only seem to truly want bi-partisanship when it benefits them. Working together and compromise are really just sound bites for the media, and not the way Congress actually runs.
The passage of this plan in the House means nothing until a similar bill is passed in the Senate, and then one unified stimulus plan from Congress can be sent before the President.

And the money is going to be well-used.

Huge in importance, as our march to socialism gathers momentum. It's a juggernaut, folks, unstoppable as the Congress, dominated by crazy, zany liberals, conjoin with the administration, dominated by crazy, zany liberals, conjoin with the US press, dominated by crazy, zany liberals to "stimulate" the US economy to generate "jobs. " Right. Obama and his tip-toeing acolytes are gonna "stimulate" the economy to generate jobs.

Curious questions: how do billions of dollars spent for global warming programs "stimulate" job growth? What has been the empirical result of previous stimulous packages: how much spent, how many jobs "generated, " how long did the jobs last? Did every feature of every previous stimulus package work, or were some a collossal waste of money?

Oh, that's right, you don't care about how much money might be wasted. You care only about the intention of the spenders. Rrriiiiigghht. Let's get rid of those spend crazy republicans and elect some people who RRREEEEAAALLLLYYY know how to spend money! GOBS OF IT!!! The real spenders are in office now and their marketing arm is in full throttle. Go ahead, check out NBC. CBS. ABC. CNN. PBS. Any tough questions for any democrat anywhere in the US? No? I wouldn't expect any until at least 2011. Their party is in power and they intend to keep them there, whatever it takes.