Obama: $850 billion stimulus

Wondering how much money it's going to take to run enough voltage through the decaying corpse of the American economy to get it up and moving again? Around $850 billion, give or take a few billion, according to P-E Obama.

President-elect Barack Obama is laying the groundwork for a giant economic stimulus package, possibly $850 billion over two years, in his first test of legislative give and take with Congress.

Obama's economic advisers are assembling a recovery plan and reaching out to members of Congress and their staffs. Obama aides cautioned that they have not settled on a specific grand total. But they noted that economists from across the political spectrum have recommended spending similar or even larger amounts to jolt the worsening economy.

What's that buy you? Extended employment benefits, food stamps, nutrition programs, health insurance, job training, roads, bridges, transportation construction, and enough crank and PCP to goose the American worker into a constant state of manic awareness and enough energy to work 24 hour shifts and keep up production. The plan is to get half of Americans digging ditches and the other half filling in those ditches.

As to the breakdown? $425 in year one, $425 in year two. Or more, it could be a $1 trillion bailout. But the worry is that if the bailout uses the 'T' money word that will panic investors with the size of the bailout, so they need to stick with the hundreds of 'B' money words to keep our Wall Street betters of the fainting couches. That was not a joke, that was actual analysis that was provided in the article. $850 billion: "O-Tay!". $150 billion more: worrying. Also, that's $850 b-words in addition to the trillions we've already spent. Your grandkids are going to be so debt ridden.