A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

With the stimulus package foundering, the President is now out to terrify the populace into rallying behind it:

President Barack Obama warned on Thursday that failure to act on an economic recovery package could plunge the nation into a long-lasting recession that might prove irreversible, a fresh call to a recalcitrant Congress to move quickly.

In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, the president argued that each day without his stimulus package, Americans lose more jobs, savings and homes. His message came as congressional leaders struggle to control the huge stimulus bill that's been growing larger by the day in the Senate. The addition of a new tax break for homebuyers Wednesday evening sent the price tag well past $900 billion.

Senate Democratic leaders hope for passage of the legislation by Friday at the latest, although prospects appear to hinge on crafting a series of spending reductions that would make the bill more palatable to centrists in both parties.

Obama painted a bleak picture if lawmakers do nothing.

"This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse," Obama wrote in the newspaper piece titled, "The Action Americans Need."

As you consider the President's thing-resembling-an-argument, consider this story as well:

A government watchdog group says the federal government overpaid for stocks and other assets from financial institutions under its $700 billion rescue program.

The chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the bailout funds told the Senate Banking committee Thursday that Treasury in 2008 paid $254 billion and received assets worth about $176 billion.

The same government that got things so wrong is now asking us to trust it to get things right with a stimulus bill that is well over $800 billion. How many people actually trust it to deliver on its promise?

And at the end of the day, whom does the President think he is kidding?