I think this constitutes bona fide evidence that there’s a credit crisis in this country: “Cities, states and other local governments have been effectively shut out of the bond markets for the last two weeks, raising the cost of day-to-day operations, threatening longer-term projects and dampening a broad source of jobs and stability at a time when other parts of the economy are weakening.”
This kind of thing is making me increasingly baffled by the manner in which this plan was initially unveiled. If ten days ago statements from utterly or partially discredited Bush administration officials had been bolstered by concrete examples of popular mayors and governors talking about this stuff to their constituents, you might have been able to stem the initial tide of popular anger that derailed the legislative process. Since when has the Bush White House been so uncreative about selling their legislative initiatives to the public?