44, Day 16: Strings Attached

-President Obama followed through on his vow to set limits on the pay of executives who work for financial firms taking money from the TARP. One might say he was even a bit generous, since he set the the cap at $500,000 a year instead of his own $400,000 salary.

-Obama signed into law a bill to extend health care coverage to an estimate 4 million uninsured children. The measure would spend $32.8 billion more on the State Children's Health Insurance Program. How'd Congress get the money? By raising the federal tobacco tax.

-On the White House blog, there's a guest post about the impact the president's stimulus bill would have on the states. Needless to say, the White House thinks it will be great for all of them.

-White House transparency watch: With the health insurance bill, Obama apparently broke his own pledge to give the public five days to review bills after they got final approval in Congress. The House voted 290-135 on the measure Wednesday afternoon, shortly before Obama signed it. In preparation for the passage, the White House posted the measure on its website on Sunday, but that still only gave those interested parties three days to look it over... Also, would it have hurt the president or Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to answer a question or two from reporters after they announced the executive compensation proposal? I'm just saying.

by J. Jennings Moss

Sources: Politico, Politifact.com, Reuters, the New York Times and the White House.