Lawmakers Reach Stimulus Deal
news.bbc.co.uk — Members of both houses of Congress have reached a deal over US President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan. Senate majority leader Harry Reid said the deal “bridged differences” between an $820 billion House version of the bill and a $838 billion Senate version. The package, now worth $789 billion, includes tax cuts and spending aimed at rescuing the U.S. economy. Votes on the final bill — which the president welcomed as a “hard-fought compromise” — could come on Thursday. Mr. Obama is poised to sign the bill into law as soon as Congress passes it. “I want to thank the Democrats and Republicans in Congress who came together,” he said, “with the urgency that this moment demands.”

Corporate Fraud Cases Straining FBI
money.cnn.com — The FBI is investigating 38 cases of corporate fraud or financial institution wrongdoing tied to the economic crisis, and the federal bailout watchdog has already opened several criminal probes, officials told Congress. U.S. officials also said in testimony prepared for a Senate hearing that fraud cases were straining resources for investigating white-collar crime, and that the U.S. Justice Department backs proposed legislation to tighten financial-fraud laws. Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the $700 billion TARP bailout, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that several criminal investigations related to the program were already under way. The FBI’s caseload of 38 corporate and financial institution investigations linked to the crisis represents an increase from about two dozen publicly reported last year.

Bank CEOs Grilled on TARP
businessweek.com — Eight CEOs of banks that benefited from the government’s bailout program appeared before the House Financial Services Committee on Feb. 11, assuring legislators the banks are aware of complaints about their use of federal — asked the CEOs who received the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds to explain how their share of the $350 billion distributed in the fall from the first installment of the program was being used. Critics of the program say there were few requirements imposed on recipients of TARP funds, therefore failing to boost lending significantly and prevent home foreclosures. The Obama administration is currently considering how to spend the balance of the $700 billion TARP.

Bankers Offer Meltdown Mea Culpa
hosted.ap.org — How’s this for an image makeover? Someone on Wall Street is actually apologizing for any role he or his bank may have played in underwriting a housing bubble that burst and plunged the nation into a recession. “We are sorry for it. I am especially sorry for what’s happened to shareholders” and to all Americans, Morgan Stanley chief executive John Mack told a House panel. “Clearly, as an industry, we have accountability and we’re taking responsibility. I’ll take responsibility for my firm.” The seven CEOs assembled with him remained silent. It was unclear whether Mack’s mea culpa did much to answer public fury over the conduct of an industry that got the recession ball rolling and was the first to receive a taxpayer bailout with virtually no strings attached.

700 Merill Executives Received Bonuses
ft.com — Nearly 700 Merrill Lynch executives had cash bonuses of more than $1 million each for last year, New York’s top law enforcement official disclosed. Andrew Cuomo, New York’s attorney-general, called the bank’s decision to bring forward nearly $4 billion of pay-outs a “surprising fit of corporate irresponsibility” that raised “serious and disturbing questions.” Mr Cuomo said the bonuses for 2008 were “disproportionately distributed to a small number of individuals,” with the top four recipients taking in a combined $121 million. Mr Cuomo launched an investigation into the payments at Merrill Lynch after reports that Merrill accelerated its bonus payment schedule in December, even as its losses were approaching record levels. He detailed some of the investigation’s findings in a letter to the House financial services committee.

Budget Gap Grows to $589 Billion
money.cnn.com — The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the federal budget deficit grew by $83.8 billion in January, bringing the total deficit for the first four months of the fiscal year to $569 billion. By comparison, the Treasury ran a cumulative surplus of $89 billion during the first four months of fiscal 2008. So far this fiscal year, which began in October, the 2009 deficit has already exceeded the $455 billion deficit for all of fiscal 2008. January’s deficit was slightly larger than December’s $83.6 billion shortfall, and is nearly five times the $17.8 billion deficit recorded in Jan. 2008. The deficit has increased dramatically in recent months as the government has spent billions to shore up the nation’s shaky financial system.

U.S. ‘Lost Track’ of Afghan Weapons
news.bbc.co.uk — The US military has failed to keep track of thousands of weapons shipped to Afghanistan, leaving them vulnerable to being lost or stolen, a report says. The report — compiled by the U.S. Government Accountability Office — was obtained by news organizations. It found that, in the four years up to June 2008, the US military failed to keep complete records on some 222,000 weapons entering the country. The report will be discussed in the U.S. House of Representatives. It states that weapons supplied by the U.S. to the Afghan military “are at serious risk of theft or loss,” reported the New York Times and the Associated Press, both of which obtained copies of the report ahead of publication.

Peanut Products Sent Out Before Tests
nytimes.com — The peanut processing company at the center of a salmonella outbreak did not await the results of contamination tests before shipping products to customers, Congressional investigators disclosed. When the plant’s manager was told that one such test had shown that the products were tainted with salmonella bacteria, he responded by saying, “Uh-oh,” according to documents released by the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee. Michelle Pronto, an official at the laboratory that did the tests, told the investigators, “When I asked if he could get it back, he said it was on a truck heading to Utah.” The disclosure came at a theatrical hearing of the investigations subcommittee that forced the company’s executives into the public eye.

Peanut Executive Pleads Fifth
washingtonpost.com — As salmonella illness began spreading across the country last fall, the owner of a Georgia peanut plant causing the outbreak railed against the cost and delays that the contamination was causing his businesses. Stewart Parnell, president of Peanut Corporation of America, also pressed federal regulators to allow him to continue using peanuts from the tainted plant and shipped contaminated products to customers with a homemade certificate that falsely attested to their purity, according to e-mails and memos made public yesterday at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Parnell, whose Virginia-based company is at the center of a massive food-contamination scandal and a federal criminal investigation, was compelled by subpoena to appear before lawmakers but refused to answer questions.

JAMES PARKS  Time to Think Big, Push for Progressive Government Action

ourfuture.org — Hundreds of progressives took the first steps to building a movement to coalesce public support for a more activist, progressive government to rebuild our nation’s economy.

JOHN NICHOLS A Better Deal, But Not a New ‘New Deal’

thenation.com — The new $789 billion measure is a disappointing proposal compared with the with the $819 billion House plan. The price tags are not the issue. It all comes down to what the money is spent on.

THOMAS B. EDSALL The Big Winners In Stimulus Compromise: The Upper-Middle Class

huffingtonpost.com — Amid all the cutting, one group emerged unscathed: the upper-middle class, the not-quite-super-rich, but certainly not on the ropes. Most of these folks, in terms of income and employment, are what could be called the un-needy. The “compromise” legislation includes $70 billion, or just under 10 percent of the whole package, to be used expressly to take care of these affluent people.

E.J. DIONNE The High Cost of Centrism

truthdig.com — The Obama administration keeps having to learn that bland centrism is not pragmatic, it’s not helpful in resolving a big crisis, and it certainly doesn’t buy you any love.

SIMON JOHNSON The Banksters’ Robbery Note

tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com — The modern bank robber calmly hands a note to the teller, asking for money and making a moderately specific scary threat. The robber, of course, expects the teller to hand over unmarked bills without a fuss.

MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD Nationalize the Banks

progressive.org — One Treasury official after another is doing somersaults on a wire to distract us from the obvious: We need to nationalize many of the banks, not save them as private entities.

ANNE PETTIFOR Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wall Street?

huffingtonpost.com — It’s hard to believe this. Harder even to write it. But America’s leaders are still too fearful of Wall Street. This makes them blind to the role that the private banking sector is playing in hurting the real economy.

THE NEW YORK TIMES Some Sense, at Last, About Katrina

nytimes.com — The Obama administration seems to have learned the lessons of the Bush team’s disastrous bungling of the resettling of Hurricane Katrina’s tens of thousands of refugees.

STEVE BENEN Maybe FDR Had Time Machine

washingtonmonthly.com — Roosevelt couldn’t “put our country into a Great Depression” with the New Deal because 1933 comes after 1929. Republicans may be inclined to create their own reality, but they shouldn’t create their own calendars.