Assuming the bill is still about 40% tax cuts, you can see that our priorities as a country are still insane. I don’t remember anyone calling this year’s over $500B spending on defense “generational theft.”

Chris Bowers notices a pretty obvious pattern — the best way to get Obama’s attention is to make his life difficult. Joe Lieberman and Rick Warren. Meetings with House Republicans and Blue Dogs who wouldn’t vote for the stimulus, while the Progressive Caucus — who supported it unanimously — get put off for a month. Profuse praise for Susan Collins, Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe who held his stimulus bill hostage in the Senate. Your best chance of getting a job in the Obama administration? Having worked for Hillary Clinton.

Rendell spoke and he noted that the House bill is much better than the Senate bill, but that the Senate bill is better than nothing and that means keeping the support of the 3 Republican Senators. He’s particularly concerned with Specter, because Specter is back up for reelection in 2010 and very vulnerable to a primary challenge.

As the nation struggles to save and create jobs, what can workers and policy makers do to make sure workers aren’t robbed? Kim Bobo, the author of Wage Theft in America, Terri Gerstein of the NY State Department of Labor and others discuss the enforcement of workers’ rights and the battle over the Hilda Solis nomination.

ProPublica has done a comparison of the House and Senate stimulus packages which shows in stark fashion the degree to which the Senate bill steals from the poor to give to the affluent. The Senate bill gives more in tax cuts to the upper middle class–in the form of the AMT patch and the house flipping subsidy–than they give in all the programs targeted to the poor.

Anyone want to hazard a guess on whether Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack will get asked about this at today’s banker hearing? Via Sam Stein: “The soon-to-be-merged financial giants — Morgan Stanley and Citigroup’s Smith Barney — announced the payments during an internal conference call last week, but warned advisers against describing them in terms that would cause PR headaches. “There will be a retention award. Please do not call it a bonus,” said James Gorman, co-president of Morgan Stanley. “It is not a bonus. It is an award….”

I’m down in DC attending the “Thinking Big Forward” Conference on the economy. The second speaker was Alan Brinkley, who summed up the history of the New Deal, it’s successes and failures. Perhaps of most interest was his list of the first things Roosevelt did:

Eighteen House members.  Seventeen Republicans — and Blue Dog Jim Cooper.  Who said that the White House “encouraged” him to vote against the stimulus bill and oppose Pelosi. 

American’s United is Pelosi’s group.  Woodhouse is her guy. 

Oh it’s on.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations has a doozy of a hearing scheduled for today beginning at 10 am ET on the “Salmonella Outbreak: The Continued Failure to Protect the Food Supply.”  

From the committee release yesterday, the following witnesses “have been invited”…

• Economic Recovery bill in conference.
• I’m sure they’ll just send the money back. 
• Because the Economic Recovery Act is treason!
• Looking to the vultures to solve the banking crisis.
• Robert Scheer is unhappy.
• Based on Tim’s performance, I’d have to agree.
• Not good news.
• The shady deal behind the Alaska AG resignation. 
• This proves that he was a partisan all along.
• Go Stormy!
• Hilarious.