Thirty-eight of fifty-four economists can't be wrong. That's the number of economists who, in a recent survey by the Wall Street Journal ($), said that "the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act boosted growth and mitigated job losses." In other words, 70 percent of economists think that the Recovery Act has helped the nation. Looks like somebody's been reading the many, many official reports which have repeatedly said the exact same thing. But I guess something just isn't true until a majority of randomly selected Ph.Ds say it, right?

We're hearing that the vote on the Sessions-McCaskill amendment will happen today at 5 (EDT). If you haven't done so yet, send a letter to your Senators and tell them that arbitrary limitations on federal spending is terrible budget-making. Take action now!

Ever wonder about the mechanics of how to spend over $800 billion? Well, so did the authors of a new report from the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, the group charged with Recovery Act oversight, a report which looks at staffing levels in federal agencies in the wake of the Act's passage. And the results aren't good. The report warns that "Recovery Act funding has substantially increased the workload of most agencies receiving these funds," and that as a result, many agency programs are reporting drastically inadequate staffing levels for their workloads.

In a report released yesterday, Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) critically examine the tax policies proposed recently in Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) budget alternative, conventionally titled, "A Roadmap for America's Future." Claims of the proposal "balancing the budget" and "reforming entitlements" have already been thoroughly debunked, but CTJ has contributed a valuable analysis of the young Republican's tax policies, which will actually cost the government "$2 trillion over a decade even while requiring 90 percent of taxpayers to pay more" than they already do in taxes.