I know a billion ain't what it used to be, but considering Obama waited a month to release this thing, couldn't he have at least crunched the numbers a little better and come up with an actual figure? I mean, as long as he's going to be calling Congress into session to tell them how to legislate, Dear Leader style, he might as well have a concrete plan.
Of course the entire debate is academic because ultimately the price will be much higher than whatever is announced tonight. The bill in the House will gain some pork, and then the Senate will kick it around, and then by the time it hits Obama's desk it will be -bookmark this page- over $800 billon.
But what about the GOP, won't they ram a stake through the heart of more spending? Not when they might be described as obstructionist (which is precisely what is needed) if they try to stop the Spender in Chief. A few brave Tea Party types will make an effort, far more will feign an attempt, but this is the beginning of QE5 (because I suspect the Fed snuck in a couple when no one was looking). The GOP's been on board with the Keynesians since the start and just because Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann have cut and paste some comments from Ron Paul's website doesn't mean they have a clue about Austrian economics.
Did you see Perry last night when he tried to expand on his plagiarized theory of why Social Security is a Ponzi scheme? George W. Bush after a six pack could have improvised a better response.
On Meet the Press this weekend Congresswoman Maxine "If I leaned anymore to the left I'd fall into the Pacific Ocean" Waters (who, for the record, is wrong on just about everything but at least fights strongly for her district and sticks by her convictions, which is more than can be said about most members of Congress) suggested Obama's plan should run about $1 trillion. Why the heck not? If Obama's going to continue down the Bush initiated borrow/print/spend road to economic doom, let's do it full force. Enough pussyfooting around with a few hundred billion here and there. Let's bump all future stimulus plans into the twelve digit range.
Look on the bright side, under Obama's new "put everyone to work building schools" plan, people will have plenty of experience using wheelbarrows. That knowledge will be helpful when next recovery summer everyone is paying their electric bills with arms full of depreciated dollars, wondering how they ended up in such a situation.