How the stimulus plan will work – UPDATED

A little levity from reader Stan:

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House. One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota.

All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. “Well,” he says, “I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, “I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.”

The Chicago contractor doesn’t measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, “$2,700.”

The official, incredulous, says, “You didn’t even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?”

The Chicago contractor whispers back, “$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence.”

“Done!” replies the government official.

And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work.

My own humble submission

One good bit of news re the economy: It’s knocking out smoking bans. I don’t smoke myself, but have always felt a proprietor should be able to open his establishment to smokers, if that’s what he wants to do. Liberty, and stuff, you know? Also, those cigarette tax revenues are needed.

Less humorous:

Obama to New York: Drop Dead. I fully expect that to be the headline at the NY Post, tomorrow.

I’m sure someone can do a better photoshop

Obama’s Executive Pay Cap: Like Ace, I understand the politics of it (and yes, greedy people unable to scale themselves back have brought this upon themselves) but find it creepy and uncomfortable to have the government dictating this. One of those genies best left in the bottle, say I. We all know that once the government learns they CAN get away with doing this, they’ll try to expand it to include others, not just the bailout recipients. If the corporations who’d accepted the bail-out money had used their heads and shown some damned restraint and sensitivity, it would not be coming to this.

Seems to me that if Barney Frank is so interested in earnings caps, though, he really should write an earnings cap for congressional creatures who mismanage our funds and our banking policies and are otherwise miserable failures. Why should they get rich when they leave office, when they’ve done lousy jobs? (Or even while their still in office?)

Ed Morrissey looks at the measure more closely and also calls it:

a populist masterstroke, perfectly timed to bump Daschlepalooza and the cratering polls on the stimulus off the front page.

You know how else Obama could have gotten his bad news off the front page? He could have gone to Kentucky and <a href="http://theanchoressonline.com/2009/01/31/kentucky-no-power-no-fema/" been present to those 250,000 (still!) Americans who have been without power or heat for about ten days, now. He’d have gotten Messiah props for it, and it would have bumped the bad news without putting a city and state at risk. Lower those salaries and you automatically lower tax revenues from people who – ahem – actually pay their taxes.

Who the hell is advising him? Mr. President, you should hire someone like me, a real person, to sit outside your office and say, “what? You wanna do what? Don’t you realize you’re just exacerbating the problem when you mandate something that lowers tax receipts and blows the mind of an already half-psychotic market? The market has a psychology and so does the populace. Go get yourself down to Kentucky and let those people know their president cares about them, it’s been ten days! Do you know what they’d be doing to Bush right now, if he was ignoring 55 dead and lots of people freezing? And say something positive for a change; you want to get people thinking about Jimmy Carter’s “national malaise” in three weeks?. I’ll tell you whut….”

Not voting for the stimulus “borders on treason”: Oh, for crying out loud. First Jon Stewart, who should know better, wonders if Rush Limbaugh is treasonous for hoping Obama’s presidency – if it is meant to deliver socialist policies – fails, and now some wonder if not voting for a president’s policy is treason? Political “obstructionism” is “treason”? When Bush was in the White House, opposition and obstruction was called “oversight” and “advise.” Now, for non-existent reason, we’re hearing the word “treason” thrown around by some as easily as they threw around the word “fascism.” That’s thoughtless, and adolescent and it ends up distorting reality. I’m quite, quite certain that these same folks would not want to see Obama compared to Lenin or Marx (and I don’t mean John or Groucho), would they? These are serious times; can we curb the hype? It might be more legitimate to wonder if the NY Times spilling national secrets was treason – that might be a real question – but this stuff? People are still allowed to opine and yes, even oppose without being guilty of treason…at least for now.

Is Obama fixing to throw Pelosi under the bus?: Mr. President, you have my support!

Must-see-video: Mark Sanford carving up the stimulus. Take ten minutes and watch it!

Richard Fernandez on Systemic Risk

Bigger than Jesus! Yes, the stimulus really is, in the sense that it’s more than a million bucks a day since He was born or, as the college profs like to insist, “since the beginning of the common-era, or CE.” My son Buster got hit with that one this year and slyly asked the prof, “common in what way? Oh, in the way we all construct time since the Birth of Christ? You mean, BC?” I told him he’ll now have to work very hard for an A in that class.

Overspending with the Democratic Caucus: well, “they won,” you know.

Another good video: Drew Carey and John Stossel on the bailout mania

Obama by-passing the media: Huh? Bush shoudl have done it but the press adores him. No need.

Cato Institute: says more economists from across the spectrum are starting to run from the stimulus bill

Victor Davis Hanson: sees an Obama Meltdown. I think it’s a little early to say that, but Hanson knows history better than I do. I do wish, though, that the press had done due diligence on Obama’s companions and associations during the campaign. It might have made him a little more cautious in his appointments. But the press only does due diligence on those they dislike, and that’s a disservice to all of us.

Oh: Ohhhhhh.

Tony Blankley: Obama’s Defense Budget Mystery

Bank of America tumbling

Jules Crittenden: Deeply unpopular plan. The markets are not liking it.