The Stimulus-I Era

Frankly, it's hard to tell whether this AP story is real of just a White House press release. Welcome to the post-stimulus age.

The president will be embarking on a "whirlwind" economic tour beginning this week, "taking his message directly to the people" according to AP. He'll accomplish this by using his new "spiffy ride" called Air Force One, complete with the pilot out of central casting, according to CNN.

Obama did his weekly radio address Saturday, heralding Stimulus-I's passage by reminding everyone how many more recovery plans are needed, including a mortgage forgiveness plan for those who've responsibly fallen behind on their payments, no doubt an interesting if not utterly destabilizing proposition to the general sense of societal order. That may be unpatriotic thought--stay tuned for the next Executive Order to find out.

Here's another ABC report that must be read to be believed:

Analysts are finding some surprises as they dig into the massive piece of legislation

Remember the five day thing? It was tucked into a blizzard of campaign promises, although Obama did include a lawyerly clause excluding "emergency" bills. As to the 48 hour promise Congress made--in a bi-partisan manner--to allow public viewing before the bill was passed well, that was just a bald-faced lie.

One has to wonder whether Obama has read the bill, especially the section detailing further restrictions than what he'd proposed on executive pay and bonuses for bankers taking bailout money, parts of it scribbled in the margins. No wonder they dropped the 48 hour thing. No wonder Nancy Pelosi got the heck outa Dodge.

In his radio address Obama said, "we must write and enforce new rules of the road, to stop unscrupulous speculators from undermining our economy ever again". Exactly which unscrupulous speculators he was referring to wasn't made clear, but when coupled with the pay caps and other rhetoric it certainly appears as if the administration has taken a Bill Ayers approach to capitalism in general. Feel good about that 401K yet?

At least yesterday we saw an emergence of the Optimist-in-Chief, a role sorely lacking last week amidst all the talk of catastrophes and such. Oh well, he's no different than previous presidents in that area, despite the change.