Stimulating

Chris Hayes looks at the pretty disappointing stimulus package that's apparently been agreed to and argues "I think progressives have to do some very long, deep, sustained thinking about why this congress has been such a failure." I dunno about that. The man's not single-handedly to blame for every problem with this congress, but the main reason the congress has been so disappointing has been that George W. Bush is still President.

The initial Democratic proposal was much better than what eventually got agreed to. The Republicans were, however, fanatically opposed to using the food stamps or unemployment insurance programs as stimulus levers, and, as ever, focused on trying to make the thing as helpful as possible to rich people. Go to Kevin Drum for the details. The result is, it's true, a not-very-good package. But the reason it's not very good is the Republicans not some mystifying failure on Nancy Pelosi's fault.