Gallup On The Stimulus

Americans are - surprise! - divided. But what they don't want is a total overhaul of the American economy and society in one huge, unmanageable bill passed too quickly for real scrutiny. The Senate bill, according to the CBO, spends 78 percent of its booty in the next two years. I'm not an economist, but it seems to me that ridding the bill of as much of that extra 21 percent as possible makes sense. Focusing it on counter-cyclical spending rather than long-term social projects should be the direction of the end-result. And Obama needs to seize the initiative on this sooner rather than later. If that means a bit of a showdown with Pelosi, it will only help the president.

And enough with the complaints that the GOP has become the Party of No. That's their job. I'm immensely relieved that the Republicans, for obviously cynical reasons, have yet begun to re-earn their total-fiscal-asshole status. I want my Republican party complaining about spending and borrowing. I want them delaying a little and quibbling over every line. It's when they played the Rove-Bush bribe-the-electorate-with-your-grandkids'-money that I got off the bus.

So it's great to have you negative whiners, obstructers and and skinflints back. I missed you guys. We all did.