Government Grants to Rock

Keep those checks coming!

Before the election, the party leadership in Congress discussed a lame-duck session to take up a bill that would pump $150 billion to $200 billion into the economy. That would follow the $168 billion stimulus, most of it in rebate checks mailed to tens of millions of Americans earlier this year.

Those checks lifted spending a bit. But they came before the credit crisis struck in force in early September.

“We need a package that matches the problem as it exists today, and in my view that means at least $200 billion a year for a couple of years,” said a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee staff.