From bad to not terrible

The stimulus bill working its way through Congress is, to be frank, a mess and the blame for that falls largely on President Obama. It is too small (we are attempting to fill a trillion plus dollar hole in the economy with what looks to be something in the neighborhood of $800 billion), it is leans too heavily on not so effective tax cuts and many solid, stimulative provisions were watered down in a failed effort to gain Republican support. All of Obama’s talk of bipartisanship led him to get rolled by the House GOP which voted unanimously against. This was not a good showing for the President or the House Republicans (and is there a bigger asshole in Congress than Minority Leader John Boehner?).

So for all of these problems, it is good to see that at least some of the better ideas for the bill are being included/augmented and the dumber ones excised/diminished. Moving this legislation out of the Awful Piece of Shit category and into the somewhat more pleasing Not Completely Worthless is progress; measured progress, but progress nonetheless.