I caught the tail end of it. It was interesting, in that I could see that Obama had quite a number of things to say in response to questions, but he stopped at very regular intervals to take the time to measure his words.

And I almost read some regret that he spilled that he learned that he should have started at $0 in tax cuts, and then let the Republicans take credit for putting the tax cuts into the package. The tax cuts he wanted in the first place.

Having seen just this little bit, I think Rush and Hannity are going to be having a good time chewing on this.

The actual shocking part: the Fox news 'reporter' gave minimal spin when summing up the conference.

Some of us have better things to do than watch the Kabuki theatre of lies.

@mantari:
I think it would be better stated to say "For 'news' reporter. Questioning if he is reporting is a bit pointless. ;)

@Kicken:
Ahem, "Fox 'news' reporter".

@Plates: thats nice your posting again showing your ignorance why?

$850,000,000,000/4,000,000 jobs= $212,500 per job. Where do I sign up?

Whoever asked about A.Rod needs to be fired.

@Plates: yeah, cause life is just awesome after your favorite president. Good job in voting for him... twice.

@Jim Topoleski: Not ignorance, just someone who knows how the sausage gets made.

If you think you there was anything meaningful said you are the one who is showing their ignorance. These are staged, scripted, and really nothing comes out of it. They do what they want, this is just the spin.

I don't think he said the bill got 'ginned up' to $800+ billion. I believe he said something to the effect of "I don't want the people to think I took office, got ginned up, and decided to spend $800 billion dollars." I know this isn't the exact quote but the article makes it sound like stim package got so big because they added random things to it like a drunken sailor spending money. That would be the Bush did things...

@projoe1979: Well, I imagine those jobs require offices, equipment, supplies...you know a reason for the job to exist in the first place. So I don't think you get that full amount.

But you knew that already, right?

@projoe1979: Average cost per job. Average salary will probably be significantly lower, especially since a good portion of the jobs lost have been in unskilled or marginally skilled positions.

@Plates: Well for me there was not much coming out of it as I have been following the situation closely and knew what was likely to be said.

But for the uninformed general public a lot was said.

And sure there was a bit of spin involved, but to say nothing came out of this is garbage on your part. It is meant to calm the public and the markets, and I am sure tomorrow it will do exactly that.

He should talk to Barney Frank about that bi-partianship thing. The first thing Frank does when asked any question is go into a long rant about how it is Bush and the Republicans fault for everything, then he says it louder, and then he might answer the question.

I know Obama has no conrol over Barney. But it shows how hard the task is on his side of the fence.

Yeah that A.Rod question was stupid, maybe next time we we can find out what he thinks of Jessica Simpson's weight?

@HYPEractive: Yeah that seemed a little out of left field.

Create more jobs- for who?
Get banks to start making loans again- Why? To get Americans in more debt again. I'm done with debt, I'm sick of debt. I'm tired of having to look in my mailbox everyday and see letter from people who I can't possibly pay but they'll keep hounding me.
TARP failed because of lack of oversight- It didn't fail for those who already have millions in their accounts.

I really hope Obama can fix this, or get the engine rolling to fix this. But don't forget it's up to us everyday people to. Take a look at your banks and places you shop. If they're disreputable don't do business with them. Take your money out of Bank of America and Citibank, don't buy cars from Crysler and GM. Speak with your money, or lack-there-of don't just sit back and complain then go to walmart and buy gallons of crap you don't need.

@Ben Popken: You mean third base.

@Jim Topoleski: Seems both Bush and Obama are pretty skilled at fear mongering

@Imaginary: Banks need to make loans to businesses so businesses have the capital to hire, grown, and expand. This is less about credit to fund credit card debt, than it is to help businesses finance their operations.

@hypnotik_jello: www.instantrimshot.com

@metsarethe...: You needed someone to scare you right now?

I SAW 9/11 happen from a hill at my campus. Hate to break it to you but the situation we are in now scares the hell out of me MUCH more than a bunch of people with bombs blowing us up. And I am in public sector which is usually relatively safe and we might be shedding jobs.

@Imaginary: loans are not bad things. Many buisnesses NEED them to work because payment is demanded for things like power or water or suppliers long before they might be paid by their customers.

The loans they are talking about here are NOT consumer loans.

And if you HONESTLY have to ask for whom we need to create more jobs to get back to work... well you dont really understand how dire things are then.

But at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life.

But the federal government doesn't actually have any financial resources. It only has money when it collects it from us, or borrows against collections from future generations. The stimulus package is predicated upon the idea that a scheme in which the government collects/borrows a massive quantity of money and then spends it is somehow superior to the government collecting/borrowing less money and letting the original owners of that money (us) spend it. Ask yourself, do you trust politicians to make wise investments with your money better than you trust yourself or your employer to do so? This is the biggest problem with Keynesian economics: it relies on politicians for its execution.

President Obama has a lot of sensible things to say about the task at hand, and I don't believe he was planning on spending massive amounts of money like this so soon, but unfortunately his fellow Democrats in the House are more than willing to manipulate this emergency for selfish political gain. More sober Democrats in the Senate, and (suddenly) fiscally conservative Republicans in Congress, seem to have no ability to override this opportunism, and the president is either powerless or unwilling to stop them either.

I'm all for fixing the economy, but didn't pres Bush try two stimulus packages that fell flat? Why is this one better, because it's bigger? I thought this was supposed to be an infrastructure bill, not a "lets dump money in a bunch of places and hope it works" bill. I could get behind the repair of our failing infrastructure, I read somewhere that its at about $1.3 trillion or more in need of repair.

@HYPEractive:

Word. They shoulda asked about Chris Brown and Rihanna instead. GOD.

Need to properly form our HTML tags

@skizsrodt: as of 9:10 PM Central Time, the debt is $10,720,671,###,### (rising to fast to keep up) ([usdebtclock.org]) how is going another $800,000,000,000 dollars in debt going to help? Isn't increasing spending kind of part of the problem?
Another link [www.usgovernmentrevenue.com]
our federal government intake for FY 2008 was $2.7 trillion. We have a GDP of $14.58 trillion. Where does all this money go?

you know, I don't think that there is a cut and dry answer for this. one hopes that the sense of urgency does not clout judgment of our elected officials to guide us out of this financial disaster.

the real problem is the how to execute a stimulus in this climate - it is speed vs. accuracy, and it is a hard thing to judge from where I am sitting.

@Jim Topoleski: I'm going to disagree with you. We've been through recessions before and we will go through one again. I really think a terrorist attack on NYC is a much more chilling prospect, especially since I commute to midtown every day and have 4 other family members do the same thing.

Frankly I dont think this plan is going to work as intended or hoped for and we are going to saddle this country with a lot more debt. We should try and stimulate the economy and only those things that will stimulate the economy should be included in this bill

@PerpetualBoredom: Well said. Personally I would like to see them take a little more time and work on this bill, eliminate things that definitely won't stimulate the economy. I also think the Feb 15 deadline is arbitrary.

@PerpetualBoredom:
Thomas Jefferson's
Thoughts on Banking and Liberty:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

@Imaginary: About time we heard some wisdom.

Create jobs? like adding in extra bureaucracy? That wont be good. No one is talking about taking away the barriers to making money in this country.

@metsarethe...: Exactly. I also questioned the Feb 15th deadline. One thing that troubled me when I read the transcript of the President's press conference was when he said the measure of the bill being successful could be indicated by either 'saving' or 'creating' 4 million jobs.

Those are 2 waaaay different things imo.

@Ghede: My thought is that it doesn't make much sense to pay $212,000 to create a job that won't earn any near that. I'm fine w/ stimulus, but there's a lot in this bill that cannot honestly be called stimulus.

I hope Sarah Palin is doing her homework because the mother of all political opportunities is opening up for November 2012.

@projoe1979: Well, the point is 4 million people benefit directly from the new jobs, and many other people benefit indirectly from the rest of the spending. Pay one guy to build a bridge, and somebody else gets paid to make the concrete for the bridge, another guy for the steel. Plus you pay office managers and accounts to handle hiring the guy and balancing the books, etc etc etc.

Where are we getting all this money to pump back in to the economy? China....? Oh wait, we are lolz. So we are going to borrow money from China, who then has an interest in our businesses, THEN we are going to "create" jobs the government is in control of... this is starting to sound more and more like Socialism... is it just me thinking this?

@AtomicPlayboy: If you want to create your own stimulus, you're quite able to. Chase will give you a credit card to borrow money with. Good luck getting an interest rate any way near what the US Government can get these days.

As someone standing just north of the border, it continues to amaze me how many people have already judge, juried and executed a fresh administration.

Impressive place you've all got going down there.

I also can't believe our guy wants to be just like your old guy. Harper just doesn't lend itself to the same kind of frat humour that Bush does.

Make that @dialing_wand: Make that "judged"

@Ssscorpion: Allow me to be candid. That stupid cow will NEVER be elected to any office outside of Alaska.

@B: But if you took out 200 (number pulled outta thin air) billion that doesn't really go to produce any new jobs wouldn't you get a better return? I just don't trust the government enough w/ my money anymore to think that they'll do w/ it what they're saying. TARP funds were passed on the assumption that they would be used to buy troubled assets (hence the name Troubled Assets Relief Program) and so far have not been used for that purpose. Sounds like this might change tomorrow. I've heard about enough in this bill that concerns me that a lot of this money is going to be wasted.

@Ssscorpion:
Bite your tongue.....that's the last thing we need. Now or ever.

@B: Why pay twice? Maybe if I have debt I can skip on the taxes for this stimulus? What if I don't want to mortgage my kids future so joe public can buy an iPod or have a job selling one?

The point is choice. The government is removing our choice from the matter.

I have yet to hear anyone - Mr. Obama included - who can explain what will happen if we don't spend the money. I need specifics. We heard this all before with TARP... Change indeed... more of the same.

@skizsrodt: $2.7 trillion goes to run the gub'ment. Seems like we should be getting better for our buck, no?

@PerpetualBoredom: Thanks for the Jefferson quote. I'm all for a decentralized banking system.

@PerpetualBoredom: meeeeow

@cmdrsass: I'm just saying. You know, that Palin sucks ass.

@Jim Topoleski: @Jim Topoleski: Well the public is stupid. They basically will accept any sort of garbage if packaged right.