Obama's economic advisers and Fed Chairman are identical to those of Bush and are all Friedman-loving economists. Why should anyone be surprised that Obama is failing? I am goinng to keep banging this drum until someone who has power responds. Our country is being sold out by an ideology that will ultimately leave us a different entity than the one our founding fathers had envisioned and we are living through a time when disaster is being used as a tool to undermine the US Constitution on a massive scale while plundering the middle class in the name of patriotism. I had an epiphany when I read Klein's book (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism). She makes clear what the real issues are and extensively documents the long and utterly inhumane history of the so-called "Chicago School of Economics" devised by Milton Friedman, and she lays out the history this economic theory and shows it to be inextricably linked to torture (with our own CIA complicit--they wrote the instruction manual known as the Kubark Manual and we got to see how it works from the photos that came out of Abu Grahib and Gitmo) and the obliteration of human rights. The middle class in America needs to understand that it is being undermined at every turn by corporitsm and that these huge, multinational corporations are destroying lives with a well-oiled machine and are using the Republican Party to do the same thing in the US they have done in the Southern Cone of South American, in Iraq, in the former Soviet Union, and in many other places in the world since their initial successes in Chile (with the use of Pinochet who was backed by Thatcher and Reagan). Until Democrats start explaining to voters that the economic struggles we are experiencing are just the beginning of the adoption of a Friedman economy, until they stop giving it euphemisms like "trickle-down" or "Reaganomics" and call it what it really is (Milton Friedman's design to replace central governmental regulation of Big Business and to transfer wealth from individuals to Big Corporations/Banks/Businesses while dismantling all worker rights and all human rights, decimating the middle class, and privitizing all public works and institutions that help to support centralized government, no article they write is of any true or lasting value. Unless the Democrats are as bought off by the Friedman fairy tale as the Republicans appear to be, they had better start addressing the true nature of the struggle we have been in for the past quarter century or more. These people are relentless. They have a long-term plan and they are ever more successful with it. They have now demonstrated that they do not need to have a US President--all they need is one-half of one branch of government and they can block any Keynesian economic plan proposed. Their strategy of blocking all legislation that gets in their way by refusing to compromise at any level is working and too many people see them as "principled heros" fighting against Big Government. They have a well-oiled propaganda machine and have more and more control over the media and message. For the first time, because Klein opened my eyes, I am disappointed in what every single Democrat has to say. They utterly miss the central struggly of our era: Friedman vs. Keynesian economics. The former will decimate the middle class and destroy human rights, worker rights, unions, and will obliterate all opposition. The latter will restore these things. So, I beg the few politicians who have not already surrendered to what Klein so aptly labeled Disaster Capitalism (the use of disasters, whether natural or man made, to so unsettle large populations that they are too concerned with day-to-day survival to pay attention to the systematic undermining of their rights and the dismantling of nothing less than the American way of life). The use of torture goes hand in hand with the remodelling of countries to get large populations to go along with this economic model. It is coming home to roost and unless those who have the ability to sound a clear and well-defined warning of what is at risk here start addressing what the true underlying struggle is, we are slowly being manipulated into this economic model. The fear that is being used now is all being manipulated so well by Republicans (fear of depression/recession, fear of losing everything through the many natural disasters that have been ongoing for years now across this country, fear of terrorism [bin Laden did more to help these corporatists than he likely ever understood--he made a huge mistake in believing the US government was the enemy and failed to identify the forces that have been manipulating that government for what they are: The real people raping the Arab states/peoples of wealth and treasure--the same ones who all too willingly make deals with despots when it suits their bottom line]. The use of torture by the US military/government, the active spying on its own citizens without due process, the undermining and dismantling of labor unions, rendition, the constant drum beat of fear, fear, fear are all symptoms of Friedmanism's presence in our midst. If we do not address this diabolical restructuring of our society soon, it will be too late. Klein has written a history of our era that most of us did not understand or analyze while we were living it. We are on the brink of losing everything and no one is addressing the fact that an ideology is being imposed on us is the antithesis of our American ideals and republic. Please, no more articles that fail to address the real reason all of this is going on.

Robert Reich is absolutely correct. The program is not big enough, particularly where the job creation part is concerned. There won't be enough jobs created, even if the bills pass, to make a difference.
More money in the program is required if it going to create enough jobs. To get more money in, you have to go to where the money is, and that is the trillion dollars that are being held overseas by large corporations that don't want to pay the taxes on their profits when they bring those funds in. I believe we should let them bring that money in, tax free, provided that put it to work creating jobs.
I live in San Diego and yesterday we were hit with the largest power outage this country has ever seen. If that isn't a reason to upgrade our electric grid, I don't know what is. General Electric would be a perfect company to do that job, nationwide. They could use those funds to get it done, create tens of thousands of jobs, if not millions, and collect fees for the finished product when the job was done. After all, the head of GE is the president's job czar, he should be glad to invest his funds that way.
There are lots of other specific jobs that could be handled in the same way by companies like Microsoft, Google, and Cysco, who could work on upgrading our data network and making less vulnerable to cyber attacks as well as building a good software learning system that could upgrade the learning process in all of our schools. Perhaps Caterpiller could organize is upgrade of our roads and bridges, as well as upgrading our airports and public transportation with the money they are probably holding.
As it is, that money is not doing our country or these corporations any good, just sitting there and earning very little interest. It's time they put it to work to make sure they can preserve the properous country I'm sure they would like to see.

Senator McConnell is typically wrong, but he is correct with his quip on Obama's latest plan, "its not a job plan, its a reelection plan"

Instead of handing over $1 trillion to the banksters and doubling down in Afghanistan, etc... the President should have invested in US infrastructure/clean energy and the middle/working class - but he chose to serve the ruling class... sure, its filled his campaign coffers, but what has that done for the poor, middle and working class?

Again, to little, to late, ignoring reality and simple/simplistic economics. If the first 'stimulus' had been doled out to "us", we would in one way or another have ploughed it directly back into the economy, spending, paying bills, saving etc; thereby creating a genuine 'bottom up' stimulus. Instead it primarily went to 'the top', who hoarded it and, as usual, nothing trickled down, no crumbs off the rich man's table. Now we essentially get more of the same. Ridiculous.
In this country of the blind, our king has both eyes shut.

You're right once again. Obama is caving in before negotiating. We could spend $450 billion by employing 10 million people at $45,000. That would make a big difference, spending money on tax cuts will not help (or else we wouldn't have this problem). We've tried tax cuts and they are ineffective, so it's time to try something else. Also the cutting of payroll taxes is a dangerous precedent. We have seen how hard it is now to restore rates to previous more sensible levels. The right will accuse the left of trying to raise taxes while simultaneously proclaiming that Social Security is bankrupt. This deal is too good for the Republicans to refuse. If they put this is place, the economy will sputter and they can claim that "Obama's stimulus plans" both failed. If they reject it they look foolish because these are basically Republican plans. Our only hope it that the right truly believes their own propaganda and refuse to go along with the plan.

My view on America at this juncture is that we are being offered a choice between "Heaven on Earth" and "Hell on Earth" and choosing Hell. I am confident that there is wealth enough for all Americans to live well with health care, but people are so Hell-bent on preventing others from succeeding that they will take us all down with them.

I think someone should tell Pres Obama that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Of course, our only choice in '12 is him or any one of the even more insane tea/republicans.