It must be nice in a time of crisis to have a ready ideological answer you can pull off the shelf. It saves wear and tear on your brain from reading and thinking things through. An economic calamity? Just dial up Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. Or better yet listen to Ron Paul.
Trouble is that almost all of the ready answers to the current economic crisis were cooked up in relative financial calm, and right now, truth be told, most professional economists are mystified as to what is going on. Sure they have their pet theories and ideas on how to fix the situation, but most will admit that they haven't seen this kind of thing before.
Previously during downturns, economists and bankers have used layers of tools to correct the financial world. For the last 20-30 years the Monetarists at the Federal Reserve Bank have controlled the flow of money using the federal funds rate. Too much growth, raise interest rates and tighten bank rates, too little drop rates and loosen controls on bank reserves. It always seems to work after a bit.
Guess what? Last year government bankers became alarmed when dropping the federal reserve rates stopped working. Rates are now darn near zero and you can't get much lower than zero. And you can drop the cash reserve requirements of banks any lower without risking the safety of the banking system if one should fail.
Flailing economists are now at the next level: They are dusting off the theories of the dread John Maynard Keynes, the anti-Christ to ideologues of all stripes. In a very short sentence: Keynes believes in aggressive government spending to stimulate the economy. Trouble is that if you start Congress down this path, you can't stop them. Keynsian economics which stared in the 30s and during the war in the 40's, darn near killed the economy in the 70s and 80s.
It starting to look like these are times when it's time to read and analyze and appreciated the wonder of the chaos.

Many Americans are probably asking themselves: "Hey, didn't we just vote George Bush and the Republicans out of office? Why are we now seeing Republican Congressional leaders we hadn't heard from in years all over the television and in the newspapers dictating to Barack Obama how to shape the economic stimulus package like they have real power."
Well, of course, the GOP is in vogue right now because, after their drooling over Obama during the inauguration, TV news and newspapers need to create an opposition to manufacture some tension to gin up ratings and readership. Times are tough in the media business.
But in truth, due to the rules of the Senate, the few remaining Republican Senators have much to say about what the body eventually passes. It's your basic civics.
Also deep down, Republican congressmen know that the vast American electorate is much more moderate than the Democrats think they are. The fact remains that the Democratic majority is still much more liberal the general population.
There is also a related question: Is the American public smart and sophisticated enough to swallow a fair and balanced economic stimulus plan without throwing a collective tantrum over a badly-timed purchase of some bankers corporate jet?