$30 Billion Question
For Democrats, $30 billion seems to be the magic number.</br></br>It's the amount Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both say is needed to stimulate the economy out of its doldrums. (Coincidently, it was the financial backing that the Federal Reserve originally offered for the Bear Stearns deal, before trimming it by $1 billion.) Sen. Obama laid out his economic plan today, and it helped sharpen policy differences between the two Democratic rivals, as well as Republican candidate John McCain. The stimulus prescription, it seems, is the political divider. Of course, both parties have already voted through a much larger $152 billion stimulus plan. That measure was designed to get people spending and businesses investing, however. The monies the two Democrats suggest adding to the pot would go toward battling the fallout from the housing crunch. Sen. Clinton's $30 billion would mostly go to help states and cities buy foreclosed properties. Mr. Obama has the same idea, but he would dedicate $10 billion of his stimulus to helping states head off cuts in services as tax revenues decline and to expanding unemployment insurance.</br></br>On the Republican side, Sen. McCain has sworn off using government money for bailouts, although he backed the Bear Stearns deal as a fix to "systemic financial problems." He also doesn't approve lowering the down-payment requirements for Federal Housing Authority-backed loans as a way to help low-income homeowners. On the contrary, he wants to raise them. Sens. Obama and Clinton can agree on very little these days, but they have united in dismissing Sen. McCain's policy as fiddling while Rome burns. Sen. Clinton revived her "3a.m. phone call" image that she had used in an attack ad on Sen. Obama, and applied it to Sen. McCain: "The phone is ringing, and he would just let it ring and ring." In his speech, Mr. Obama said Sen. McCain's plan "amounts to little more than watching this crisis happen." Sen. McCain struck back in a statement before Sen. Obama's speech had even ended. "There is a tendency for liberals to seek big government programs that sock it to American taxpayers while failing to solve the very real problems we face," he said. Sen. McCain agrees with his opponents in some areas. Like them, he thinks mortgage companies should do more to help cash-strapped but creditworthy borrowers with their loans.</br></br>---</br></br>Oil Pipeline Struck in Iraq