Congress returns to work this week to consider an economic stimulus plan. The Senate comes in Monday and the House on Wednesday.

While the broad outlines of that plan can be determined from reading news reports and watching President-Elect Obama’s first weekly address, the details are what matter.

The broad outlines:

- Extension of unemployment benefits. (You can see some vigorous discussion of that here and here.)

- Spending on infrastructure like bridges and roads and schools and such.

- Maybe some kind of bailout for the auto industry. (The Senate is supposed to take it up an auto industry bailout Monday at noon, but the administration has hardened its objections to the $25 billion plan last week.)

- Spending to promote “green tech”?

The rumored tally for all this has been pegged at around $150 billion dollars. That’s about $1,500 per U.S. family in spending, or $490 per person.

Now, ask yourself, would you spend $500 based on “broad outlines”?

“You might get a leather jacket, or maybe a suit, but it could be a new set of tires.” Heck NO!

When the original $700 billion bailout plan came forward, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged to post it online for 24 hours before a vote. The bill failed a vote in the House. Later that week, a bill developed without the same public access passed. It would be a tragedy if the Speaker and others took this as a lesson that they shouldn’t be forthcoming with the public.

Confidence in government will remain at rock-bottom levels until the public has a window onto the laws that are being considered in Congress. The Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate should post the text of the economic stimulus package at least 24 hours before a vote, and preferably 72 hours before a vote.

These words from Thomas Friedman’s Saturday opinion piece on the presidential candidates certainly rang true:

Watching them in the context of the meltdown of the financial system was like watching a game show where the two contestants were kept off-stage in a soundproof booth and brought out to address the audience without knowing the context.

As noted here: “In a Sea of Deficits, the Candidates Are on Spending Autopilot, neither major-party candidate has talked about the cuts in government spending that probably need to happen.

“Both candidates are whispering sweet nothings about all the spending they’ll do, but that’s a bit of a siren song considering how much debt we’re swimming in.”

I’ve done a couple posts here on the national debt - the inability of the national debt clock in New York City to handle the rollover to $10,000,000,000,000.00, and the freezing of the Treasury Department’s online national debt clock, now resolved.

The other day, through the WashingtonWatch.com Twitter feed, I discovered a service that will send you the national debt for the day, each and every day. Check out the NationalDebt Twitter feed.

Unfamiliar with Twitter? I wrote some about it while I was deciding whether or not to Tweet WashingtonWatch.com stuff.

The National Debt Twitter feed is hosted by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which is dedicated to “increasing public awareness of the nature and urgency of several key challenges threatening America’s future, and to accelerating action on them.” Sounds good to me.

They have an interesting page on the real national debt, which stands at about $53 trillion, not the $10+ trillion we think of. This is the debt calculation that includes what the federal government has committed to pay in Social Security and Medicare benefits beyond expected revenues in those programs.

Your share of the real national debt is about $175,000. You and every other person in the country. The real national debt is a real problem.

Anyway, kudos to the folks at the Peterson Foundation for pressing these issues as we’re doing from time to time here. Now, if we could just get through to you people!

Seriously, pass this post along to someone who you know who might be interested. We can get this national debt situation under control if everyone pays a little attention and takes a little time to get a handle on all that our government is into. We’re here to help you do that. And we’re gonna make it fun! (huh - maybe)

There were a lot of good reactions to yesterday’s post about candidates for federal office with responsibility for at least part of the financial crisis.

We listed House members and Senators who either voted for, or didn’t object to, a law freeing up financial services firms to offer these wagers known as “financial derivatives” without being subject to gambling regulation. The result has been a financial and economic disaster of as yet unknown proportions.

If you reviewed the list carefully, you noted that both Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) stood by and let the law pass in 2000. It went through the Senate on “unanimous consent” and they failed to object. Given their responsibility to know what is on the Senate floor and what it does, it’s fair to find them blameworthy.

In case you’ve been in a coma, McCain is the Republican nominee for president. Biden is the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee. (Neither Barack Obama nor Sarah Palin were serving in the House or Senate when the law passed, so they’re off the hook on this one. Same with independent candidate Ralph Nader.)

But there are some other presidential candidates out there that were around when the table was set for this part of the financial crisis.

Bob Barr and Cynthia McKinney are the Libertarian and Green Party candidates for president respectively. They were both serving in the House of Representatives in 2000 — both representing districts in Georgia, in fact — when the vote happened on the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001.

Libertarian candidate Bob Barr voted NO. (Here again is the House vote.)

McKinney did not vote; she was one of 80 members who declined to register an opinion. It’s hard to know whether this was some kind of protest or if lots of Members of Congress were prioritizing Christmas shopping, but in this case it looks good for her. Even if all the non-voters had voted No, the bill still would have passed.

Particularly in the case of Barr, this tells you something about outsiders, and I think it tells you something good. The get-along, go-along types who have made it to the top of the heap in U.S. politics both participated in the creation of the country’s current economic woes. The people who don’t play ball both voted against that. There’s something to be said for not getting along.

A third-party vote signals to the major parties that you’re dissatisfied with they way they’re doing things. You’ve got reason to be, considering the role of McCain and Biden in precipitating the financial crisis. There’s another thing to consider when you go to the polls next week.

In 2000, Congress passed a law barring states from regulating credit default swaps under their gambling and “bucket shop” laws. This set the stage for the market in “financial derivatives” that are a big part of what is causing the economic meltdown today.

One hundred fifty-five of the Members of Congress who voted for this law are still serving—and they’re up for reelection next week. You might want to take their votes on credit default swaps into account when you go to your polling place.

The Senate passed the bill on “unanimous consent.” Everyone just agreed to let it go through, including 22 Senators who are up for reelection.

Below is a list of the current Members (all of them up for reelection) who voted to let gambling be treated like a financial service, and the Senators up for reelection who allowed the bill to go through.

Click on your state to see if your representatives helped create today’s economic problems: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, or Wyoming. (See all House votes here.)

For some background, give a watch to Sunday night’s very interesting and insightful 60 Minutes piece on credit default swaps and how they played into the financial crisis. Essentially, they’re side bets that allow people to wager on financial outcomes without having to buy assets.

The 60 Minutes story points to a section in H.R. 5660, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. That bill was folded into the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001, a massive spending bill, passed in haste at the end of the 106th Congress.

(Sound familiar? Congress passed a similar huge spending bill a few weeks ago.)

Now, is it unfair to blame House members and Senators for letting this small provision through in such a large bill? Heck No! They collectively let the annual spending process get out of control. This lead to the gigantic bill with the derivatives gambling provision in it, which is now a cause of our economic collapse. They should be held responsible individually for the results, and hiding from their responsibility in collective shirking will not do.

Recapping, the following list includes House Members still serving who supported the Consolidated Appropriations Act and Senators currently up for reelection who allowed it to pass (plus a couple who voted for it in the House). The bill preempted state gambling regulation on financial derivatives. These folks have responsibility for at least some of the economic mess we’re in today.
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With the drama of the election and the recent huge bailout and spending bills flying through Congress, it’s easy to forget the kajillions of little things the federal government is churning out all the time.

So here’s one that caught my eye - the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has just announced a meeting “of the General Conference Committee of the National Poultry Improvement Plan.” It’ll be held at the at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta January 28, so book your plane tickets now if you want to go.

The meeting will be open to the public, but I was disappointed to learn that the public is not allowed to participate in the discussions during the meeting. I had thought that I would share my personal poultry improvement plan, which is to cook it in some oil and spices and plop it into folded corn tortillas with a dollop of sour cream.

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The world was rocked a couple of weeks ago when I reported here that the National Debt Clock was broken.

Not the big sign in New York City - that one’s working, though it needs a new digit. The Treasury Department’s “Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It” feature was stopped. Stopped on Friday, October 10th.

Well, it’s running again. Go on with your lives America!

But keep in mind that the national debt is now $10,524,112,985,802.87.

Your share of that is $34,448.30.

You and every other man, woman, and child in the country.

This Week with George Stephanopolous did a great little set-up piece this morning on the budget situation the two presidential candidates would face if elected.

In each of the debates, Senators McCain and Obama were asked what they would prioritize or cut given the large existing deficit and the weakening economy. Both largely refused to talk about scaling back their spending plans.

The ABC News piece says that Senator John McCain’s economic plan would “cost” $5.0 trillion dollars and Senator Obama’s $3.5 trillion over 10 years.

It’s difficult to find their source (happy to get more info in the comments, folks), but I suspect it’s this report from the Tax Policy Center. “Cost” is a little ambiguous: What it says is that their plans would increase the national debt by these amounts - about $40,000 (McCain) or $29,000 (Obama) per U.S. family.

Increases in debt are caused by either more spending or less revenue (that is, taxes). The report says “Obama would raise revenues by about $800 billion over the decade, while McCain would lose $600 billion.” That means higher taxes to the tune of about $6,400 per U.S. family under Obama’s plans over a ten-year period. McCain’s tax cuts would be a total of about $4,750 per U.S. family over ten years.

So, in summary, both candidates would increase the debt by increasing spending. Obama would increase the debt less because of higher taxes. McCain would increase the debt more by cutting taxes while increasing spending.

Which of these two choices do you prefer? (Maybe neither?)

The This Week piece also says the head of the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated the 2009 deficit at $750 billion. A group called the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says it’s more like $1 trillion. That’s between $7,700 and $10,250 per family in overspending just this year, even before either of the presidential candidates really gets to start in with their promised spending.

Both candidates are whispering sweet nothings about all the spending they’ll do, but that’s a bit of a siren song considering how much debt we’re swimming in.

On Saturday, I wrote here about how the National Debt Clock in New York City had run out of space. Things have taken a turn for the worse.

The U.S. Treasury’s version of the national debt clock is broken!

A visitor to this site emailed me today to point out that TreasuryDirect’s “Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It” feature is stopped. Stopped on Friday, October 10th.

Query what the national debt was on Monday, and it tells you about Friday, October 10th. Query what the national debt was on Tuesday, and it tells you about Friday, October 10th. Query any day after Friday, October 10th and it tells you about Friday, October 10th.

This may be great news: the national debt has stopped growing!

This may be dreadful news: The national debt is so high that computers can no longer compute it.

This may be sinister news: the U.S. Treasury is trying to conceal the debt numbers from the public!

Most likely, this is not really news: something is wrong with the Web site that displays this national debt clock.

But since we’ve had huge spending bills in Congress the last few weeks, this is no time for debt clocks to go out of whack. The public needs to see what’s going on from every direction, and the total national debt is a very important one.

By the way, just so you know, the national debt today is three or four days higher than:

$10,294,381,432,306.11

That’s $33,706.56 per man, woman, and child in the United States. $105,507.30 per average family.

The drama of the financial services bailout, coming right at the end of the congressional session and the beginning of the new fiscal year, was very distracting. So distracting that it was easy to miss the partial/temporary spending bill that Congress hurriedly passed.

The bill (now law) is Public Law 110-329, the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009. Total cost: $8,000 per U.S. family.

The financial services bailout law cost a little under $3,000 per U.S. family, according to our analysis of a relatively vague government cost estimate. (It will probably really cost more like $6,500 per family.)

But this spending bill - which received almost no comment in the press or consideration in either House of Congress - cost about eight large per family.

Here’s a breakdown of where the money goes in the bill, which is split into five “divisions”:

• Division A is a “continuing resolution, which spends money on domestic, non-defense government programs through March 6, 2009. Cost per U.S. family: about $1,650, or $525 per person.
• Division B is “emergency supplemental” spending for relief and recovery from hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters. Cost: $230 per family/$75 per person.
• Division C is spending for the full 2009 fiscal year on the operations of the Department of Defense. Cost: $5,000 per family/$1,600 per person.
• Division D is spending on the Department of Homeland Security for the full 2009 fiscal year. Cost: $410 per family/$131 per person.
• Division E is full fiscal year 2009 spending on military construction and veterans affairs. Cost: about $750 per family/a little under $240 per person.

Congress had essentially been planning to abandon the regular schedule for several months before the beginning of the fiscal year October 1st. The investment banking crisis made the problem worse by drawing everyone’s attention from the really big spending moving through Congress at the same time.

Oh well! Better luck next year, right? Or maybe people will start to insist that Congress use a more careful process when deciding how to spend literally thousands of American families’ dollars.