How to make a bad situation worse

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - How can anyone make a financial crisis which could eat up to a trillion dollars in government funds any worse? Demanding an appetizer of $50 billion more in government spending. Democrats have assessed that as their price for supporting the biggest federal bailout in history, and Barack Obama leads the chorus:

Congressional Democrats are pushing for a new $50 billion economic-stimulus plan as a way not only to jolt the economy but also to help themselves politically in November’s elections. The plan would include new spending for infrastructure, an extension of unemployment benefits, energy assistance to lower-income families and aid to states to help pay Medicaid health-care costs for the poor. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama touts the plan almost daily.

“This plan can’t just be a plan for Wall Street,” he told a Charlotte, N.C., audience Sunday. “It has to be a plan for Main Street. We have to come together, as Democrats and Republicans, to pass a stimulus plan that will put money in the pockets of working families, save jobs and prevent painful budget cuts and tax hikes in our states.”

Most Republicans sharply disagree. They note that negotiators from Congress and the Bush administration already are eyeing a financial-rescue package that’s estimated to cost $700 billion.

With this fiscal year’s federal budget deficit already headed over $400 billion, and next year’s likely to top that, “sooner or later there will have to be a reckoning,” said Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.