It's official - the secret hold on S. 2590 is none other than Sen. Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens (R-AK). Sen. Stevens is the former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and all around Senate curmudgeon. What's interesting about the fact that Stevens put a hold on the bill is his rationale. According to Stevens' spokesman Aaron Saunders, the Senator is worried "that the bill would create more bureaucracy. He wants to see a cost-benefit analysis." Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK)

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has put a hold on S. 2590. TPMmuckraker reporting: A spokesman for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) just confirmed his boss was the man behind the secret hold on the Coburn/Obama spending database bill, which has captivated a segment of the political blogging community in recent days. "Sen. Stevens does have a hold on the bill," said the spokesman, who would only speak on the condition he not be named.

TPMMuckraker, with the help of GOP Progress and porkbusters.org (who originally started the tally), has narrowed the list of possibilities of the "secret hold" on S. 2590 in the Senate to five candidates (in fact, in the time I took writing this post, the list narrowed from eight to five):

Robert Byrd (D - WV) Mike Crapo (R - ID) Judd Gregg (R - NH) Orrin Hatch (R - UT) Ted Stevens (R - AK)

This morning, the Census Bureau released its report, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005. Nationally, 2005’s 1.1 percent increase marked the first time that real median household income showed an improvement since 1999. The poverty rate remained statistically unchanged from 2004, which marked the end of four consecutive years of increases. That’s one tale of the economy. But, as OMB Watch noted yesterday, the raw numbers are misleading unless historical benchmarks are taken into account. The economic tale that does so is not as sanguine.