All of a sudden, a few things have changed. Democrat businessmen of high repute have said that Obama’s economic plans are nuts. And evidently Democratic Congressmen have begun to hear from back home that their constituents aren’t buying into the largesse that would be largely coming from their own pockets. AP:

in Congress, Obama’s budget plans were meeting resistance. Sen. Kent Conrad, the chairman of the Budget Committee called the track of future deficits “unsustainable” and singled out Obama’s proposal for adding $634 billion in health care spending over the next 10 years. “Some of us have a real pause about the notion of putting substantially more money into the health care system when we’ve already got a bloated system,” said Conrad, D-N.D.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, testifying before Conrad’s committee, also encountered blunt questions about the administration’s plans for shoring up the nation’s banks. He reiterated the administration’s goal to lay out a private-public partnership to make up to $1 trillion in financing available to help banks clear their books of toxic, mortgage-related assets that have led to a national credit freeze. Geithner hinted more money might be required beyond the existing $700 billion financial rescue fund. “We certainly can start with the resources we have,” he said.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., played down talk that Democrats would consider a second economic stimulus bill. “I know that people have made suggestions that we should be ready to do something, but I really would like to see this stimulus package play out,” Pelosi said. “It’s just not something that, right now, is in the cards”…

(It certainly hasn’t hurt that some of the zombie banks don’t want any more government investment as well.) Meanwhile, Obama himself stressed today that there would be zero tax hikes prior to 2010, and that — get this — now fully 97% of individuals and small businesses would be unaffected by the hikes, up from 95% just the other day. We’ll just have to see what the expiration date is on the President’s most recent policy promulgations.

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