Economy & Budget

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the new figure head of the GOP, said Monday morning that the process by which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) quickly pulled together the $787 stimulus package was "unacceptable."

Here's Cantor on CBS's "Early Show":



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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this morning on ABC's "This Week" that he is open to nationalizing the country's banks.

From ABC:

"I think if you put most of our major banks under a 'stress test,' they're going to fail," Graham told me.

"This idea of nationalizing bank is not comfortable but I think we have got so many toxic assets spread throughout the banking and financial community throughout the world that we're going to have to do something that no one ever envisioned a year ago, no one likes," he said.

"To me banking and housing are the root cause of this program," Graham said. "I would not take off [the table] the idea of nationalizing the banks."

Check out the video below, from Talking Points Memo:

Coming off a shockingly large re-election win last year, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins proved last week that she is now ready to exert her will as one of the most influential members of the Senate.

Collins was undoubtedly a winner of last week as she, along with Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), marshaled their economic stimulus bill to passage in the Senate. And once that was done, Collins held firm, saying she wouldn Read more...

Shortly after voting as a block against the $787 billion stimulus bill, some Republicans were touting aspects of the bill that will benefit their districts.

Republican John Mica of Florida put out this release praising the money from the bill that will go to a commuter rail in the state.

A reader points out that Michael Steel, House Minority Leader John Boehner's (R-Ohio) spokesman, admitted that the $30 million for mice in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) district talking point was, in fact, erroneous.

"There is no language in the bill that says this money will go to this project," Steel told the San Jose Mercury News. "There are large pots of money in the bill that go to various agencies. One of those agencies said the salt marsh harvest mouse project is something we'd do if you gave us the money."

The $30 million talking point led to this story in the Washington Times and landed on the Drudge Report. Greg Sargent over at the Plum Line tried to sort through where the statistic originated here. And The Hill noted on Friday that the measure wasn't anywhere to be found in the bill.

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), delivering the Republican radio address on Saturday, criticized the Democrats Read more...

President Barack Obama thanked Congress for passing his $787 billion stimulus bill in his weekly radio address on Saturday, calling the bill a Read more...

After what seemed like eons, the Senate passed the economic stimulus bill by a vote of 60 to 38. Republicans Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Arlen Specter (Pa.) voted in favore fo the bill.

UPDATE: Here's The HIll's Alexander Bolton's write up of the vote.

UPDATE 2: Here's the roll call.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is not the only leader rushing to get out of Washington for a special trip.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had planned a vacation with his wife, former Labor secretary Elaine Chao over the Presidents

UPDATED: With the final version of the economic stimulus plan being voted on today, the White House is seeking the public's response to the bill on the revamped WhiteHouse.Gov.

Only one problem: you can't read the bill.

Here is where you can comment on the bill. But when we tried the top two links, we were taken to a House.gov page that read: "The requested page could not be found."

(H/T Consumer Reports)

UPDATE: A reader points out that the links are now working. They weren't when this was posted.