By the way, Scott Rasmussen’s latest poll shows that already -- before the new TARP money is included -- public support for the humongous stimulus package has dropped to 42 percent.

It remains to be seen whether Republicans can in fact stop the stimulus package, but that certainly would be a very good idea. The long-run financial consequences will certainly force higher future tax rates -- a prosperity killer feared by Arthur Laffer. And while all the social spending gets baked into the long-run budget baseline, the short-run implications of the plan have little economic-growth potential.

Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of alternative tax proposals that would truly re-ignite the economy. Former Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush economist Larry Lindsey criticized the Democrat package in Wednesday morning’s Wall Street Journal, describing it as "heavily weighted toward direct government spending, transfers to state and local governments, and tax changes that have virtually no effect on marginal tax rates." Instead, Lindsey proposes a big payroll tax cut that would slice three points off the rate for both employer and employee.

Rush Limbaugh also made an appearance in the Journal. He has a clever idea to give Obama 54 percent of the $900 billion package -- equating that amount to the new president’s electoral majority -- while 46 percent, which was John McCain’s electoral tally, would go to a plan that would halve the U.S. corporate tax rate and provide a capital-gains tax holiday for one year, after which the investment tax would drop to 10 percent.

It was Sen. John McCain on Fox News last Sunday who started the stimulus revolt when he said he couldn’t support the package and called for less spending along with a large corporate tax cut. Over in the House, Republican leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor have successfully launched an opposition drumbeat by attacking congressional Democrats rather than directly hitting President Obama. Now all eyes will turn to Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell to see if he can keep up this drumbeat.

Will commonsense Americans really support a massive overdose of government run amok? I seriously doubt it. This whole story has to be completely rethought.