From Huffpo …
Reports of a recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, showing that the vast majority of the money in the stimulus package won’t be spent until after 2010, have Democrats on the defensive and the GOP calling for a pullback in wasteful spending.
Funny thing is, there is no such report.
“We did not issue any report, any analysis or any study,” a CBO aide told the Huffington Post.
Think the media blew the build up to the Iraq War? See how they did on the financial crisis.
This has been another episode of Great Moments in Popular Diction.
President Obama uses his first YouTube Address as the sitting chief executive to promote the specific goals of his stimulus plan. That and other political news in today’s TPMDC Saturday Roundup.
Bernard Avishai on what’s needed from the US on Israel-Palestine.
Note particularly what he says about both Israel and Palestine being cleaved into two separate societies and how those cleavages are making peace impossible without some outside force.
Nancy Pelosi says that Republicans have had the opportunity to present their ideas for the stimulus — but their ideas have to be good ones. That and other political news in today’s TPMDC Sunday Roundup.
President Obama on Monday will direct federal regulators to move swiftly to grant California and 13 other states the right to set strict automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday evening.
The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and marks a sharp reversal from Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions is one of the most dramatic actions Mr. Obama can take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.
Take that, Stephen Johnson.
Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, the Franken-Coleman election contest trial begins today. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
TPM Reader SG checks in:
Am I the only one who is simply flabbergasted that any Republican, much less a member of the Bush Administration like Karl Rove, thinks the closing of Gitmo will be a campaign issue that favors the GOP? I listen to these people lecture us about the difficulty Obama will face in relocating the prisoners and one word keeps repeating itself in my mind: chutzpah! Of the highest order! It’s as if they built a poorly designed nuclear plant, let it melt down on their watch, did nothing to clean it up, and then upon leaving office said: “Good luck with that nuclear plant! We’ll be watching and ready to pounce when you haven’t got that sucker under control in a year!”