Americans wanted action. The republican/conservatives, their economist enablers, and the corporate media were all back on their heals; the CW was that "big spending had to be done, and done now" - it was a done deal. Until, Obama and his genius supporters step in and turned the simplest of things into crap.

Whatever McCaskill's particular problem is, there's a lot of it going around, and if "Dems in Disarray" is not a headline somewhere, it's only a matter of time before it is.  And it would be spot-on.

What we needed in the WH - or running the show, anyway - was someone who could take this situation by the throat, grab everyone else by whatever anatomical appendage would cause the most pain, and exert such order and unity of purpose and focus that a real plan - not just one lame-a$$ bill with a huge price tag - would be before the Congress, the GOP would not know what hit them, the people would be cheering in the streets and the message that change was here would be unmistakable.

But...no.  We have Executive Order Obama ("hey, if I can do it with a stroke of the pen - I'm your guy!  Big picture stuff?  Not so much") who can't seem to round up his own party because he is more interested in wining and dining Republicans, and has yet to settle on a consistent message and follow through on it.

  ----     [HR 384] Adds the stricter executive compensation limits from the auto bailout bill to firms that receive TARP money. The stricter limits include a ban on bonuses and incentives for to the 25 most highly compensated employees of a company, "any compensation plan that would encourage manipulation of such institution's reported earnings to enhance the compensation of any of its employees," and a mandate to divest in private airplanes. Notably, these stricter limits would apply retroactively to executives from companies that have already received TARP money.
This legislation was passed by the House only eight days ago, over the objections of all but 18 House Republicans. It is still be possible for Senate Democrats to pass a mirror to HR 384, and send it to President Obama's desk. In fact, such a bill would have to first be passed through the Banking Committee, chaired by Senator Dodd. Further, if Democratic Senators were urged to pass this legislation by the Obama administration, it is likely that such legislation could be passed next week, given the massive influence President Obama has with Senate Democrats. And then, poof, the excesses of the bonuses would be solved.
However, as reported on multiple occasions on Open Left, this simply isn't happening. Instead of passing this law, and stopping the bonuses, Senator Dodd and White House NEC chair Larry Summers simply exchanged letters of assurance. They could have stripped these bonuses, but they themselves chose not to do so.------

It goes to the Senate and gets marked up, winnowed down, sharpened with both sides in the fray..Senate sees big picture.
Schumer said last nite that the tax cuts for the middle class and poor will get pared down to 20% from 25%..and infrastructure will get bigger.
This will get some GOP senate votes as GOP governors are clamoring for it even. Then it goes to conference and gets finalized and finally gets passed and signed right on schedule in mid-late Feb.

Then they start on the next bill...TARP redux..and the bad bank...and finally at the same time another bill on foreclosure/housing aid.. Schumer said last nite to expect three big bills attacking this problem. It is gonna be expensive,but even the conservative economist and Jack Welch on Charlie Rose said they will hold their noses and support it.

It seems that congress just can't help but to try to sneak into a bill tangential provisions(remember the wooden arrows?) which no matter how just or desirable aren't central to the issue at hand.  Perhaps that is how the sausage normally gets made but couldn't they restrain themselves for such an important bill where everyone is watching.

I'm much more angry at the Republicans and Democrats who passed TARP, and the ones who are going to pass this new bill (I'm convinced Republicans will jump on board once they get more spending added to the bill for their friends).

It's not the banks, not wall street, it's Congress who is selling out our children's future to hand money to those with better political connections than we do. Who cares if we add regulation for how they are spending the money since for one money is fungible, and for two, it's still our money going to people who gave huge campaign donations. And that's the bottom line.