First the good news: Congressional Democrats are talking up the idea of a second fiscal stimulus package to help jump start the U.S. economy.

Now the bad news: Congressional Democrats are talking up the idea of a second fiscal stimulus package to help jump start the U.S. economy.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said she would raise the prospect of a second stimulus bill when she and other Congressional leaders meet with President Bush this week, CNN reported Monday.

Anemic U.S. economy

Speaker Pelosi did not provide specifics but said March 2008's "disturbing unemployment numbers" which indicated the nation's economy lost 80,000 jobs "compels the President to work with Congress on a second stimulus package to get our economy back on track, create jobs, and speed assistance to families struggling to make ends meet," CNN said.

On Monday, the Bush Administration said it was too soon to talk about the need for a second economic stimulus package because the first one had not been fully implemented yet, Reuters reported.

My Ph.D. adviser David E. RePass, professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, used to frequently recite an axiom about the U.S. Congress that rings true, regardless of era, or circumstance.

"Congress does not react, unless not reacting will result in the wrath of the American voter."

Well, concerning housing, it looks like Congress sees the wrath of the American voter ahead because the legislative body is starting to react.

Two measures working their way through Congress may ease the housing crisis. The first, a bipartisan Senate measure, is a modest step to address the rise in home foreclosures, The New York Times reported Friday.

Seeking to change the subject from her foreign policy exaggerations, Sen. Hillary Clinton turned her attention to domestic matters, proposing a $30 billion plan to help state and local governments reduce the number of foreclosures.

Moreover, she proposed creating a "high-level emergency working group" comprised of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan "father of the mortgage crisis" Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and reported Barack Obama supporter/ former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. The New York senator thinks the world needs another government study whose recommendations will be ignored.

"As much as she focused on ways to ease the mortgage crisis, Senator Clinton also dwelled on what she called 'a crisis of confidence in our country,' and portrayed herself as the candidate best able to address the economic problems of middle-income and economically struggling families," according to The New York Times.

Voters, though, are showing a lack of confidence in her. Odds of her winning are slim and none, according to Politico and other political media. That being said, the housing crisis and high oil prices will be the top issues in the campaign. Expect a billion or so commercials on the topics between now and November.

Freelance writer Jonathan Berr edits the blog Ketchup and Eggs.

Over the past ten years, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY)'s CEO, Meg Whitman, has had a love / hate relationship with eBay users. No matter what your personal thoughts are regarding Whitman, you have to give it to her; she did take eBay to levels no one would have dreamed possible just ten years ago.

Well, her tenure at eBay is coming to an end, and her next move is into politics, working high up in Senator John McCain's Presidential campaign.

Back in January, Whitman announced that she would be stepping down from eBay to pursue philanthropy and politics, and her first big step is going to be serving as co-chair of Senator McCain's national presidential campaign.

While we still have not reached the point of McCain being announced the official Republican candidate for the upcoming election, it is all but a forgone conclusion that McCain is going to be the Republican's choice for November's pivotal election in America. After a rocky eight years with George Bush running the show, the Republicans are definitely going to have their hands full with this year's election, and Whitman is coming on board to have a leading role in the campaign's financing and policy development.

On Saturday, President Bush warned that the government must guard against going too far in trying to fix the troubled economy. "If we were to pursue some of the sweeping government solutions that we hear about in Washington, we would make a complicated problem even worse -- and end up hurting far more homeowners than we help."

"Democrats know that wait-and-see is not a responsible strategy for an economy that is teetering on the brink of recession," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "The president continues to convince himself that inaction is the cure-all for the economic problems hurting hardworking Americans." Democrats intend to strengthen the economy with measures dealing with housing, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.

President Bush said the recently passed program of tax rebates should begin to lift the economy in the second quarter of the year and have an even stronger impact in the third quarter. But he urged caution about doing more, particularly about the crisis in the housing market.

Former Vice President Al Gore is doing quite nicely staying out of the current political fray.

Generation Investment Management Ltd., which he co-founded with ex-Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) banker David Blood in 2004, attracted nearly $5 billion to its main Global Equity Fund and is probably restricting inflows into the fund next month, according to Bloomberg News.

The fund has some pretty high ideals according to its Web site: "We focus on the economic, environmental, social, and governance risks and opportunities that can materially affect a company's ability to sustain profitability and deliver returns. Our research plays an important role in forming our views on the quality of the business, the quality of management, and valuation."

So how does that translate in the real world? Al Gore isn't providing performance details, according to the Bloomberg story. It's kind of weird for Gore to be so mum considering that its biggest holding Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) is up more than 60% over the past year in U.S. trading.

My initial assessment of The New York Times' (NYSE: NYT) controversial story about John McCain's relationship with a female lobbyist gave the paper too much of the benefit of the doubt.

Originally, I wrote, "What people, particularly those outside of the media, need to realize is that there rarely are smoking guns in these sorts of stories and that anonymous sources are a necessary evil. At times, journalists have to build their cases using circumstantial evidence the same way lawyers do in court."

But after reading Clark Hoyt, the paper's ombudsman, blast the piece in his column Sunday, I realized that I was too easy on the paper. The story, as Hoyt noted, "did not say what convinced the advisers that there was a romance. It did not make clear what McCain was admitting when he acknowledged behaving inappropriately - an affair or just an association with a lobbyist that could look bad."

The New York Times reports that Hillary Clinton is giving off signals that her campaign for President could be nearing an end. It's hard to know if this veil of tears is just Hillary using the crying gambit -- as she did in New Hampshire -- in the pages of her hometown newspaper. But as she acknowledges in the article, running for President is a marathon from which the fittest political athlete emerges victorious.

The Times article helps highlight a critical difference between Clinton and Obama which may explain why Obama is proving himself to be the fitter of the two Democratic candidates. With Clinton, it appears that the voter's job is to help her to realize her ambitions by giving her money or votes. By contrast, Obama presents himself as the vessel for achieving voter's hopes. In short, with Hillary it's about what voters can do for her. And for Obama, it's about what he can do for voters.

The effect of these different approaches is that Clinton appears tired as she struggles to break an 11 state losing streak in the upcoming March 4th primaries. It's as though she needs the voters to give her the strength to keep going and that evidence of insufficient support saps her strength. By contrast, Obama looks like he hasn't really broken a sweat as he goes from victory to victory.

Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, today unveiled a new $210 billion federal spending plan that he says would create jobs in construction and environmental services.

The Obama proposal would invest money over 10 years in two programs, the largest of which would be a $150 billion effort to create 5 million "green collar" jobs to develop more-environmentally friendly energy sources.

The remaining $60 billion would fund a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to rebuild the nation's highways, bridges, airports and other public facilities. Obama said the construction fund would create nearly 2 million jobs, many of them in construction directly - - a sector hard-hit by the housing sector's correction - - the nation's most severe housing slump in more than 20 years.

Rival Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, called Obama's effort unoriginal. Neera Tanden, Clinton's policy director, said Obama was offering ideas Clinton proposed months ago. "Voters may ask themselves that if Senator Obama cannot produce his own ideas on the campaign trail, how will he solve new problems as president?" Tanden said in a memo e-mailed to reporters, The Associated Press reported.

Furthermore, the Republican National Committee, which seeks to portray Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal, included Obama's plan on its 'Obama Spend-O-Meter.' The Republicans assert that Obama's announced programs would add $850 billion in federal spending over four years, including health care, education, national service and foreign aid programs, among others. The RNC's web site did not break down the asserted total by year, but economist Steve Affinito told BloggingStocks Wednesday, assuming equal, annual appropriations of $212.5 billion, the total would not be an unreasonable nor an unwarranted outlay, from an economic standpoint, in his interpretation.

"I don't know where the RNC obtained its $850 billion total, but for the sake of argument, even it was $220 billion per year, that's fairly modest, given the services it includes, including universal health insurance," Affinito said. "Also, given the current state of the economy we may find we may need another $150-$200 billion economic stimulus this year, just to keep the economy growing. So in that regard, Sen. Obama's proposal is insinc with the times and a net positive for the U.S. economy."

As a registered independent who voted for Obama on Super Tuesday, I was interested in reading BusinessWeek's take on Obama's likely impact on the U.S. economy. Its conclusion is that Obama is thoughtful and refreshing and is willing to work with business leaders, many of whom may reject him because he does not hew to the Republican line on taxes.

Last Friday, while Guest Hosting CNBC's Squawk Box, I spoke with Obama's economic advisor, University of Chicago professor Austan Goolsbee. He made two points that I found interesting. First, he said that Obama is very enthusiastic about the prospects for the U.S. economy and the stock market. Second, he suggested that Obama was months ahead of Hillary Clinton in proposing an economic stimulus package.

I asked Goolsbee what he thought was the cause of the economic slowdown. He thought the problem was the cash-strapped consumer and that tax rebates were the solution. I argued that the problem is that banks lack sufficient capital to offset the write-downs they're taking in the wake of the evaporation of demand for the Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) they hold. Goolsbee thought this was a secondary problem and did not embrace my proposal to recapitalize the banks.

Hillary Clinton's chances of becoming the next president of the United States are fading fast.

Barack Obama swept the so-called Potomac primaries yesterday in Maryland, The District of Columbia, and Virginia, humiliating the New York senator by double-digit margins. On the Republican side, John McCain won a decisive victory over rival Mike Huckabee further cementing his front-runner status. The real story of the election, though, is the surging popularity of Obama.

The exit polls in the latest primaries probably are scaring the Clinton campaign to death. As The New York Times noted, "he received majority support from voters across all income and education levels, as well as across political ideologies, from those who described themselves as liberal, moderate and conservative Democrats. And independents, who were allowed to vote in Virginia's Democratic primary and accounted for 2 in 10 voters there, supported Mr. Obama two to one over Mrs. Clinton."

Social scientists, unlike some journalists, are reluctant to label anything a trend until they've amassed and evaluated a great deal of data often over years. A journalist can always cite a lack of information, or the crush of daily (and shorter) deadlines as a reason his/her news story did not describe reality, but if a social scientist errs in a refereed-article, well let's just say the action is not conducive to career advancement.

And that's why many social scientists are reluctant to comment on the impact of Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) run for the U.S. presidency: it's way too early to articulate informed conclusions that are likely to endure.

Still, that's not to say that one can't comment on developments that may -- and underscoring "may" -- be indicative of a trend. And along that line, here's what we know about the Obama candidacy regarding voting behavior:

As voters prepare for the Super Tuesday primaries, Democrat Barack Obama is closing the gap with Hillary Clinton while GOP front-runner John McCain is surging ahead of Mitt Romney.

Obama's performance is remarkable. A Gallup poll shows the Illinois senator trails Clinton 44% To 46%, according to The Wall Street Journal. (subscription required). On January 20, Clinton had a 20 point lead over Obama. More significantly, Clinton now is in a statistical dead heat with Obama in California, one of the big prizes in Super Tuesday that was once considered a lock for the New York senator.

All hope isn't lost for Hillary Clinton. Polling data should be taken with a huge grain of salt at this point in the campaign. Nonetheless, Obama's rising popularity is hard to dispute. The Grateful Dead minus the late Jerry Garcia are reuniting for the first time in four years today for an Obama rally in -- where else -- San Francisco. During the last Democratic debate, Obama and Clinton were asked about whether they would ever join forces. That probably won't happen. For one thing, Clinton needs Obama more than Obama needs Clinton and given the nastiness of the campaign it seems doubtful that one would play second fiddle to the other.

As for the Republicans, it's about time to stick a fork in Mitt Romney. Polls show that McCain has a 2-to-1 lead over Romney, proving that all of the money in the world can make voters like you. Once McCain wins the nomination, you can bet that there will be plenty of photo opportunities of him looking fit and vigorous, particularly if Obama is the Democratic candidate.

The silly season has only just started.

This one may make the record books for an approved, federal stimulus package, if it becomes law within a month.

U.S. Congressional officials from both parties and White House aides announced Thursday morning they have reached a tentative deal on an economic stimulus plan, an aide close to the negotiations said, Reuters reported.

"We have an agreement in principle," said the aide, who spoke on condition he not be identified. Plan costs were not immediately available.

The Democratic Party-led U.S. Congress and the Republican Party-led White House have been negotiating a $140-160 billion fiscal packaged aimed at stimulating the U.S. economy, which most economists believe is growing well below trend-growth levels. Many believe the economy is growing at about 1.0-1.5%, if it hasn't already fallen into a recession.

George F. Will, a man so WASPy that he would be cast as a conservative TV pundit if he wasn't one in real life, is downright depressed about his beloved Republican party.

Writing in the Washington Post, Will said "Nov. 4 could be their most disagreeable day since Nov. 3, 1964. Actually, this November could be even worse, because in 1964 Barry Goldwater 's loss of 44 states served a purpose, the ideological reorientation and revitalization of the party. ... Today, all the usual indicators are dismal for Republicans."

Among the problems cited by the bow-tied commentator:

More people identify themselves as Democrats,

independents are sympathetic to the Democrats,

Democrats control the majority of seats in states with 303 electoral votes,

Most Americans believe the country is on the wrong track,