Today in Washington D. C. - Jan 27, 2009

Yesterday, the Senate voted 60-34 to confirm Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary. See: The B.O. Republicans who voted for Geithner Many Americans are suffering frustration over the double standard of special "grace" to Geithner who violated the law and now gets oversee the very agency (the IRS) that will enforce those same rules on the taxpayers.

Senate begins consideration of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansion bill (H.R. 2). Actions in the House continue to be irrational. President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit the Republican policy lunch today for a formal introduction as president and for a potential discussion of his economic proposals.

As the stimulus bill continues to be worked on in Congress, it’s becoming clearer that Democrats have overreached in crafting it. Despite admonishments from President Obama not to throw earmarks and pet projects in the bill, Democrats in Congress simply couldn’t help themselves, “larding up the $825 billion bill with $50 million in arts subsidies, $200 million for teacher bonuses and a whopping $15.6 billion worth of Pell Grants for college students,” as the Las Vegas Review-Journal put it yesterday.

Indeed, even the San Francisco Chronicle is skeptical of the spending projects in the House version of the bill. In an editorial today, the Chronicle wonders, “Are the shopping lists designed to reward political bases or genuinely get the economy rolling?” It notes that “One wish list approved by the Democratic-controlled House Appropriations Committee goes on for 12 pages.” The editorial concludes, “before the solutions are chosen, the administration must present a clear rationale for which items will qualify - and why - for an enormous spending plan that is supposed to lay the foundation for an economic recovery. That hasn’t happened yet.”

At least House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have been embarrassed enough to consider dropping one of the strangest expenditures put forward: funding for birth control. The AP reports that “Democratic officials say House leaders are seriously considering deleting family planning funds for the low-income from an economic stimulus bill” after being asked by the Obama administration.

However, there remains the question of whether all this spending will actually get money into the economy in a timely fashion. A new CBO report out today shows that the Democrats’ bill won’t even meet the goals laid out by the Obama White House for timely spending. According to Reuters, the bill “will pour some $525.5 billion, or 64%, via spending and tax cuts into the ailing economy within 19 months,” but the White House target was 75%. Of course, the second half of 2010 is hardly the “swift and extraordinary action” on the economy Obama said he wanted yesterday.

On the Today Show this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell noted, “Frankly, what’s developing here is [Obama’s] biggest problem is with his own party, the Democratic Party, which seems to be drifting away from what he said he wanted, which was for the package to include at least 40 percent tax relief and to be earmark-free.”

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