It was this past week in which Barack Obama said that deficit spending could cause a double dip recession. Nonetheless, a “New Consensus Views Stimulus as Worthy Step.” That, at least, is the headline in the New York Times as it tries, on its front page above the fold, to push for a second stimulus.

But things are not as they seem.

Remember, Obama says more deficit spending is bad. Then there is this:

Now that unemployment has topped 10 percent, some liberal-leaning economists see confirmation of their warnings that the $787 billion stimulus package President Obama signed into law last February was way too small. The economy needs a second big infusion, they say.

No, some conservative-leaning economists counter, we were right: The package has been wasteful, ineffectual and even harmful to the extent that it adds to the nation’s debt and crowds out private-sector borrowing.

The Times goes on to say that “more dispassionate analysts [have] reach[ed] a consensus that the stimulus package, messy as it is, is working.” But concedes that only “a quarter of the stimulus money [has gone] out the door after nine months.”

If all of this is above the fold in the New York Times, particularly the last bit, why the heck do we need a second stimulus? Only one quarter of the first stimulus has been used and unemployment continues to rise.

ABC and others report that the Obama administration has invited union representatives to participate in conference calls with state and local officials, which have been held to set guidelines for how ’stimulus’ money is spent.

As first reported in the Los Angeles Times, California officials have said that representatives of the Service Employees International Union were given unprecedented access to an April 15 conference call between federal and state officials in which the state was made to justify its plan to slash $74 million from its budget by cutting health aids’ maximum salaries by $2 an hour.

State officials, speaking on background, said the cuts were essential to balancing the budget and were surprised that representatives of the SEIU — one of the country’s largest labor unions, and one of President Obama’s biggest campaign contributors — were present on the call.

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Excellent work guys.

House Republicans are setting up “a stimulus-watch program” that will allow watchdog groups and private citizens to report findings as contractors and agencies start spending billions of dollars on roads, schools, renewable energy projects and other initiatives, said House GOP Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia.

Here’s the thing: the stimulus will fail. Even the Congressional Budget Office says the stimulus, as passed, will drag out the recession. Obama can make statements claiming the bill will save 4 million 3.8 million 3.5 million 2 million jobs. The media will give him a pass spinning it as “if the stimulus hadn’t passed, you would have lost your job.”

That does not, though, somehow validate the idea that the stimulus will stimulate the economy. It won’t. But in the meantime, a lot of bad stuff will happen. A lot of waste will be generated. A lot of corruption will be uncovered.

And because the GOP held the line and refused to vote for the stimulus, the Democrats and Barack Obama will own it.

CNN’s Political Ticker reports that with Ted Kennedy apparently unavailable for a Senate vote tomorrow, Harry Reid is trying to line up one more Republican to vote for the Democrat spending bill. The concern is that without Kennedy, the bill has only the minimum number of votes required to pass: 60. And the three GOP supporters had made clear that their support was conditional on there being 61 votes — so none could be described as the decisive vote that passed the package.

According to Roll Call (subscription required), Reid has a backup plan in case he can’t get another Republican:

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Last week, the House of Representatives passed the “Pelosi Pork Package,” a massive spending bill disguised as a stimulus plan.  I joined every one of my Republican colleagues and 11 of my Democrat colleagues and voted against this obscene bill, standing up for the American taxpayer and our future generations. 

The total cost of this spending bill is a whopping $820 billion.  However, this country already has a $10.6 trillion deficit, so we must borrow this money.  The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that we will have to pay an additional $347 billion in interest, racking up the total cost of this bill to over $1.1 trillion.  With this one vote, if it is passed by the Senate, Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team will have increased the national deficit by almost 10 percent.

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In the debate over the ’stimulus,’ Barack Obama’s biggest problem is that he has not wanted to take the lead on the legislation. For weeks Congressional Democrats complained that his reluctance to set out his recommended legislation was slowing the process. When all was said and done, he never did reveal ‘his’ bill; he simply communicated his priorities to Congress and let them carry the water. Early on in the process the bill clearly deviated from the guideposts he set out — exceeding his recommended spending level and neglecting tax cuts. All along, he has kept his distance while Congress worked out the messy details. Now it seems Congressional leaders may no longer be listening to him.

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Glenn Reynolds asks a good question: WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR LAST BIG “INFRASTRUCTURE” BILL?

Everyone seems to have forgotten that just three years ago, in August 2005, Congress enacted the biggest federal public works program in American history, spending a massive $286.4 billion on the 2005 highway bill. At that time, President Bush and congressional leaders from both parties told us that the new highway bill was needed to fix our infrastructure problems.

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It looks like not all Congressional Democrats are prepared to march in lockstep with Barack Obama into a brighter future:

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.), who chairs the Financial Services subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises, said on C-SPAN that Democrats have “lost our way” and “shouldn’t be pressed by silly deadlines” of getting the bill into law by the Presidents Day recess.

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