It appears that Barack Obama has noticed there's an elephant in the room.  An elephant called "entitlement spending", which has over the past forty year slowly digested virtually the entire nondefense federal budget.  Apparently Medicare and Social Security spending are on the table (at last?).  I welcome the consideration, although the last time this happened (under a supposedly conservative President) we got a new liability (the Medicare prescription drug benefit) without any corresponding cuts in benefits.  If anyone's asking, I'd propose raising the eligibility age somewhat, and tightening up what counts as "disabled" for Social Security.  I've met several people whose only disability was terminal laziness (and I imagine that wasn't what Roosevelt had in mind).

Also, the best short article on stimulus I've seen yet, from a man with a very impressive job you wouldn't think existed unless you thought about it: the Chief Economist for Google, Inc., Hal (No relation to the computer in "2001: A Space Odyssey") Varian.