o what extent did the Treasury Secretary and the executive branch permit misinformation and fear to be used to panic the Congress into abrogating their responsibilities to the American taxpayer and pass a very bad bill with very little consideration?

John Dickerson at Slate points out one of the unfortunate truths behind the stimulus bill: the process didn’t go as President Obama promised. All that election rhetoric about being more thoughtful and more transparent fell to the wayside as our new President chose expediency over all other considerations.
If you’re going to spend nearly $800 billion [...]

As the stimulus bill works its way closer to completion and the President continues his PR push, many Americans aren’t yet sold on the plan. While a Pew Center Research Poll found 51% support the bill, those numbers have declined from 57% with the biggest drop coming from those who’ve “heard a lot” about the [...]

After failing to rally bipartisan support for the stimulus package, President Obama is taking to the road to rally the people behind his plan.
The president will visit two areas hard hit by the recession: Elkhart, Indiana, and Fort Myers, Florida. The question is, will Obama’s trip be nothing more than the kind of cheering-crowd photo [...]

Oddly reminiscent of some recent comments I’ve read.
Hmmm… I wonder if Nancy is commenting here on the Donk with sock puppets.
h/t Joe Gandelman at the Moderate Voice

January saw the largest one-month job loss since late 1974. Businesses eliminated 598,000 jobs. In the last 12 months, the nation has lost 3.5 million jobs, the largest 12 month job loss since records started in 1939.
While the employment rate is still at a manageable 7.6%, the numbers of unemployed workers are rising and the [...]

If you thought $700 billion was a lot of money, well..
It is.
But $2 trillion is.. ridiculous.

This is Danielle Ivory from ANP.
Congress and the new administration have been focusing their attention on strengthening oversight for the Treasury’s TARP program, but meanwhile few are paying any attention to the Federal Reserve.
Since September, [...]

A spending bill as enormous as the current stimulus package is going to include its fair share of expenditures that have nothing to do with stimulating the economy. Our representatives can’t help themselves. They’ll use any spending bill as an excuse to fund pet projects. The AP details some of the non-stimulus related projects lurking [...]

In a last-ditch effort to influence the stimulus package, Republicans have proposed an alternate bill focused predominately on tax cuts.
“If government spending was going to get us out of this mess, we’d have been out a long time ago, because that’s all we’ve been doing,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. “This is not going to [...]

We all knew there would be a stimulus package coming out of Congress. The question wasn’t “if” but “how much.” Now that there are specifics, we can add another question: is it worth it?
Republicans are crying that the bill is pork-laden and advances liberal interests over the national interest. But the Wall Street Journal hits [...]

Call it TARP Part Deux. Today, Congress authorized the release of the second $350 billion intended to prop up the American credit markets.
While some hoped to thwart the release of monies for the controversial plan, the Democratic Leadership succeeded in rustling up the necessary votes, buoyed by President-elect Barack Obama’s explicit request for quick approval. [...]

Apparently, Congress isn’t just going to pass whatever economic stimulus ideas President-elect Obama requests. Already, there’s opposition brewing from both sides of the aisle.
Republicans, in a sudden burst of fiscal responsibility, are worried about tacking on even more spending to what is projected to be a $1.2 trillion dollar deficit in 2009. Some Democrats are [...]

Four Senate vacancies. In one, literally a staffer is appointed to keep the seat warm for the Senator’s son. In another, it’s an ongoing battle of which high-profile election surrogate to reward for their loyalty. In the third, the trumping consideration was apparently in favor of the guy most connected to big money, at the expense of qualifications or experience. And in the fourth, the guy nominated was an unimpeachable public servant undeniably qualified for the job.

Do you know where your $700 billion is? Or at least the part that’s already been handed out to financial institutions? No? Well, according to a new AP report, we may never know.
The AP contacted 21 banks that received bailout funds. Not a single one agreed to provide specific answers as to where the money [...]

Hi, this is Danielle Ivory from the American News Project. My colleague, Lagan Sebert, and I just published a new video on the bailout and a lack of serious oversight.
Today, Henry Paulson urged Congress to release the second half of the $700 billion of the bailout money. But no one seems know what banks [...]

Hello Donklephants! I’m Mark, and I regularly blog at (and run) the site Publius Endures.
Ostensibly I self-identify as a libertarian, although I’m not terribly dogmatic and tend not to write much on the more common libertarian themes, focusing instead on taking a sober look at the relationships between interest groups (which I [...]

As everyone knows, Congress and the White House have promised a lot of money over the last few months. Currently, taxpayers are on the hook for $8.7 trillion in loans, guarantees and other payouts. While some of the loans will be repaid, $8.7 trillion is a number that really needs to be put into context:
According [...]

If Ford declines the taxpayer money, Ford deserves the support of American car buyers. If GM and Chrysler take taxpayer money, they do not deserve the support of American car buyers. Polls show that a majority of Americans oppose taxpayer dollars being used to support the Detroit 3 bailout. Perhaps the right idea is to boycott any company that takes taxpayer funds against the wishes of the majority of American taxpayers.

After the Senate put a halt to the automaker bailout yesterday, the White House has announced today it may bailout the automakers itself with the money approved for the financial bailout.
Nice to see that all the debate in Congress was just a pageant and the Bush Administration will, once again, do whatever it wants, [...]

There has been plenty of talk about how the federal government can save the American auto industry by pumping in billions of dollars in loans and requiring the Big Three to conform to new government mandates. What hasn’t been as fully discussed is how current government regulations are affecting the industry.
In The Wall Street [...]