You'll remember that the proponents wanted a trillion-dollar bill, but moderate Dems demanded that it be kept under a trillion so that opponents wouldn't be able to call it a trillion-dollar program. See how that worked out.

Steve, you are very correct about the time needed to work out of this mess. However, the next time or two the President goes out for burgers, could he please stop at a local gas station and notice the increasing prices? Fall will be here far too soon and many seniors heat with oil, as well.

I guess the "whole" is less than the sum of its parts.

Fall will be here far too soon and many seniors heat with oil, as well.

Hence the $5 billion stimulus money slated for weatherization.

The only response should be, "Well, we would have had it fixed by now, but we compromised with Republicans."

The meta-issue here is that the GOP is clearly searching for an attack that works. They will keep spinning the dial, trying this linguistic change, trying that new accusation, and trying to block every legislative initiative that could benefit the Democrats. They believe this hysterical, party-first attitude will be their way out of the hole they're in.

Works for me -- dig harder, fellas. Your base loves you! What could be wrong with that?

Every time one of the Republicans says something like this, I wonder whether (s)he can possibly believe it, or will simply say anything that seems politically advantageous. Instead of engaging with any of these "arguments," we should be repeatedly pointing out that if the speakers do believe these things, they are way too stupid to have the power they do, and if they don't believe them, they are actively working against the interests of the nation.

Let me see if I've got this straight. Five months into his term of office, it is Barack Obama's fault that the economy he's inherited is still a mess. Yet eight month's into his predecessor's term, the first foreign attack in the continental US since the War of 1812 was the fault of Bill Clinton.

Just checking.

(I could add that almost six years into his predecessor's term, the fact that North Korea successfully tested a nuclear weapon was also the fault of Bill Clinton - but that would be rude.)

i dunno. even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then, and Boehner may actually have something here. on the merits, of course, he is a raving idiot. but politically, given the "what have you done for me the last 10 minutes" attention span of the MTV-addled public, this may be the best card the R's have in a generally weak hand. you cant ignore that the latest polling shows faith in Obama to handle the economy dropping (yes, it also shows faith in the R's at the lowest level ever, so Boehner may have limited impact as the messenger). but Dems and Team Obama would be negligent to brush this off entirely. They need to keep a close eye and have a response ready to shore up support if the public begins to get impatient which I think could actually happen fairly quickly, no matter how irrational that impatience is.

Yes, Davis X. Machina, I appreciate the stimulus part. However, fuel tanks still have to be filled prior to winter and gas prices are increasing rapidly. So, when one needs to fill a 275 gallon tank, oil at almost 3 bucks a gallon ain't cheap. It appears that many are joining with Senator Bernie Sanders to attempt to rein in speculators, but, Congress and the Administration need to move more rapidly.

Well, let's look at the record so far.

Great start: Obama announces he will close Gitmo -- except he doesn't really mean it. As we now know, Obama has absolutely no intention of closing Gitmo any time soon. I'm sure in his own brain, where time is measured in millennium, Gitmo will one day close -- but just not now.

Economy: Obama proclaims the importance of stimulating the economy, says (in response to the Repugs) that, of course, it is about spending, that is what a stimulus is. But then refuses to present a bill he'll fight for, and watches as Blue Dogs and Repugs whittle away at the bill til it is a shell of a stimulus package. Despite knowing that a weaken bill would not be effective, and knowing that if the economy does not turn around the Repugs will be rewarded at the polls, Obama sits by and watches his one chance at improving the economy slip by.

Economy2: campaigning as a guy who will make change, Obama wins a mandate from the American people in November . . . and promptly begins naming Clinton hold overs, Bush hold overs to his cabinet and his economic team. He embraces the deregulators and those that stood by while Wall Street raped America. He sits by while major Wall Street firms are protected, rewarded for acts that should have been criminal. In the end, the banks get what they want, and his team works hard to guarantee that regulation remains weak, or nonexistent.

The only thing holding Obama back is Obama. The only thing holding back the Democrats, is the Democrats.

You can not run for reelection on this type of performance. Yes, it has been only six months. But what a six months! The only thing that could top this now would be a major terrorist attack.

This administration so far has been about broken promises, delayed action, and hesitant governance.

I am one of those 32% who when asked say they disapprove of Obama's performance. I also am one of those vast majority who also say they have a bad opinion of the Repugs.

I voted for change; what I got was more war, more recession, more government secrecy, more Gitmo. What I expect to get in the next six months is a health care bill that does nothing, and probably even has more handouts to the insurance industry just to get passed, no end to DADT, no meaningful regulation of the financial industry.

Obama can still turn this around -- as long as he realizes that he was elected for a four year term, not a four hundred year term. Because based on his performance so far, he won't get my vote again in 2012.

enough concern troll-eque comments without me piling on, thnak you mr frame-is-god and mr coal oil/$3 a gal.

the points are in ascending order:

1) Boner is a joke.

2) The aforementioned-not-yet-flowing-cash-into-the-economy stimulus was the "appearance of a stimulus" not the whole deal. We'll need at least that again -- and soon... and then maybe again.

3) so, as far as 'socialism' is concerned, you stupid wingnuts... you aint seen nothing yet...
either gov-created jobs or gov-created soup-for-soup-lines...

I work as a freelancer in an industry that is VERY sensitive to the mood of the economy. With the ups and downs in my business, I can usually tell when things are going to get bad long before they do, and I can also tell when things are going to improve long before they do. I knew the economy was going to hell about six months before the current recession began, because my sales fell off a cliff. And right now? Business is BOOMING for me. It has been right through the roof for about two months now, and looks to be picking up even faster through the summer. This has happened with each of the last three recessions/recoveries. I truly believe this boat is turning around.

So bite it, Boehner. I predict the Republicans are going to have an interesting time of it in 2010 and 2012 when the economy is cranking up again.

So Freddie, what line of business? I'd sure like to know in advance too.

As for the Boner/Beaner/Byner/Whatevner kerfuffle -- it's just one more chapter of You Can't Be Bipartisan With A Bad Faith Partisan. I wish the let's-all-compromise-and-be-bipartisan cheerleaders would figure this out. If it were a person, it would be eligible for the senior citizen discount, so as far as I'm concerned it'd be fine if they showed signs of catching on sometime soon.

"Maybe Boehner can just wait in the corner and let the grown-ups talk for a while."

No such luck, I'm afraid. He's always got to be the center of attention, even when he has his facts wrong.

Boehner's lusting for another cod piece moment. Sorry, coppertone boy. The premature ejaculator left the White House in January.

boner's a dunce...the economy isn't a three-minute egg....considering the momentum of the downturn obama inherited, expecting a quick uptick after 4 months is not moored in reality...it's like thinking an aircraft carrier can pull a quick u-turn

Why even comment on anything Bonebrain says. I've got birds in my backyard that are smarter than him.

Of of our best rebuttals to those gripers about Obama: If BushCo hadn't run up such huge debts to start with (per Cheney's asinine "Reagan proved deficits don't matter"), it would be so much easier to deal with the current crisis. That's the main thing normal-times deficit slackers forget - what if something weird happens? So it's best to stay tight during normal times and keep deficit spending in a cage in case we're up against the wall.

The crew that supported our going into debt previously, they should go UATW.

Whether what the Repbublicans say makes any sense or not, it is going to work with the brain dead public and MSM. So why not go for it?

I am afraid that "Joesbrain" @ 12:11 pm is where a lot of us ("progressives") are heading. While Obama is light years ahead of Bush - he still is way behind on fulfilling his promises. I won't bother to list them (Joesbrain listed a few) but Bush and the Republicans would have run roughshod over the Democrats by now if the tables were reversed.

Two years into Reagan's first term, the economy was in a deep recession, but Republicans up for midterm reelection campaigned, for the most part successfully, on the slogans "Stay the course," and "let Reagan be Reagan," arguing that his policies hadn't had time to work yet, but would work eventually. I do not expect anything remotely resembling fairness from people like Boehner, but let's remind the sane majority in this country that Obama inherited a much worse financial mess than Reagan did, and if Reagan deserved more than two years, so does Obama.

I'm, pretty much, of the same opinion as Zeitgeist; Repubs bitching about how long it's been taking is due to the speed at which everything else -- particularly the news -- is being disseminated. In a world where a 30 second YouTube take of a macaca moment can change the course of a senatorial race and grind a political career into dust, 4 months sounds like a very long time.

I read the paper version of NYTimes 5 days out of 7, but I read it the day after it's published (we don't get it till late afternoon, by which time I'm already deep into blogs). Quite often, I'll read something and think "What? This has been in public arena for weeks and they only come to it now???" Then I look again and, indeed, the news item is only 24-48hrs old. But, because I've read it on five different blogs the moment it became known, it *feels* like it's been weeks, not hours. No wonder the, that months feel like years.

Time gets compressed and you're left with an impression that it doesn't move at the normal speed. Especially, if you're following a particular subject, dear to your heart. Then, it seems like time isn't moving at all.

Steve, I love your writing, but it's wishy-washy moments like this sentence that make me think you're even lighter than your predecessor:

'...has not yet completely cleaned up the mess they directly helped create.'

Directly helped create? Come on, grow a pair! How about, 'the mess they created.' Okay, that's too strong, you say, so how about, 'the mess they pretty much created.' Or even, 'the mess their policies created,' which would be objectively true by any measure.

neill, complaining about the approaching 3 bucks a gallon makes me a concern-esque troll? You write as a HuffPo type zealot. Your "My Obama right or wrong" is a poor as the RepuG's "My country right or wrong" Archie Bunker types. If you noticed, I agreed with Steve's assessment of the difficulties and time needed to turn our economy around. However, most Democrats, including myself, are and have never been lock step followers. The President should use the power of his office and the bully pulpit to stop this increase of gasoline and oil prices. Concern troll? You picked on the wrong guy, fella.

Boehner continues to be his wingnutty self.
Doing his soft shoe in hard times, as they say.
The Republicans remind me of when Bush's man Chertoff made the statement "I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who do not have food and water, 9/1/05---TOTALLY out of touch.

Republicans like Boehner continue their stubborn ways,
will only take the country into disasterous directions.
He reminds me of Bush doing a fly over of the Louisiana coast
while simply looking out of the window doing absolutely nothing.

Like Bush flying over the disaster of New Orleans, the tanned Boehner
simply wants that photo-op for himself, and that is it.
He offers nothing.

Heating Oil is Not Gasoline

beattheclock has expressed justified concern for the people who still use oil-fired furnaces. But - does heating oil have the same price as gasoline? They're radically different petrochemical mixes.

So - the question is, what's the price of heating oil doing? Is it going up, like gasoline?

Or not?

Well, it took 28 years of Reagan's voodoo economics to get us where we are today. I'm betting we will be dealing with the "glorious failure of unregulated capitalism"* for just as long (if we're lucky!)

* Failure as in the middle class is being destroyed - the rich are not doing too bad especially now that we're giving them trillions of tax dollars.

what's the price of heating oil doing?

It has gone up about about 30cents in the last month.

Back in the '30's a CA congressman wrote to a constituent:

One of the hazards of being in Congress is getting mail from donkeys like you. You write that I promised to reforest the Sierra Nevadas and have been in office two months and it hasn't happened yet. Please take two running jumps and go to hell.

For some reason that occurred to me when reading about Mr. Boehner's statement.

Heating oil is basically light diesel (diesel #1). About the same price.

The stimulus was soem spending and some tax cuts. Why is it no one remembers the HUGE tax cuts.

Presumably Democrats are following FDR's policies in dealing with the Great Depression. But FDR's policies never did cure the Depression. In 1937 another depression hit and unemployment, which had been over 20%, went up again. The inexperienced Mr. Obama and his liberal brain trust have no idea what they're doing.

In Venezuela, Chavez has gasoline at about 25 cents a gallon. Chavez have also stopped the major corporations from raising prices on the price of goods.

The GOP really think Americans have short memories.

Prez Obama said he would hold the governors of each state to spend the Stimulus Money wisely -

Boehner needs to lay off the Vitamin A - it's doing more than turning his skin color orange.

Obama promised hundreds of thousands of jobs saved and/or created this summer. That isn't happening. It's not that the Republicans are holding him to some unbelievable standard; Obama is failing what he himself promised.

If the latest spin is a bust, look for Boehner to burst into tears and start sobbing, "when are we going to fix the ECONOMY?" That worked pretty well last time.

um, actually Tink the trendline in the rate of initial unemployment claims shows slower job losses than in the first quarter - which means that Obama very well may be saving hundreds of thousands of jobs. That is a less visible result that job creation, but just as important - and just as much a fulfillment of Obama's goal.

mhr : "In 1937 another depression hit and unemployment, which had been over 20%, went up again. "

as regular readers of this blog already know, that second "depression" happened because the gop got on fdr about the deficits and he slowed spending...

There might even be some justification if someone were to say 'where are the results?" If it were accompanied by the phrase 'we tried it your way..."
But they've ben screaming, obstructing, watering down, and dumping teabags in the town square.
"I thought you said you could thread a needle! EEEEEE! YAAAAAAH You can't do it! YAAAAAAAH!"

Krugman is right; Obama stimulus hasn't had time to reach the economy. All the improvement must be from the Bush deficits finally kicking in and war spending--a trick Bush learned from FDR.

uyBoIq