for the housing market from Washington. George Bush's push for an ownership society and the Democrats push to see FNMA and Freddie Mac extend home ownership to groups normally closed out of that part of the American Dream made it unlikely that any regulator would crack down on the mortgage market. This time the twin towers were "Housing always goes up" and "Washington will bail us out if it doesn't". The rest is history. My history, anyway.

Wiliam Kristol advises the Republicans on how to counter-punch - separate the real stimulus from the longer-term investments in America.

Republicans should stop trying to improve the unimproveable with small-bore amendments to the current legislative package. Instead, they can point out that Obama is supporting under the guise of emergency legislation a bloated catch-all of stimulus, pork and (often bad) policy.


UPDATE: It's officially a "SPENDING" BILL,
the President announced that "spending IS stimulus" and his minions [i]"got it"