Obama's December Surprise: A Real Stimulus Package?

Somebody must have poked President Obama with a stick

. He woke up Monday and noticed that the country has been roiling in economic pain and thought "Gee, maybe I should do something about it."

What he did was play a schoolyard game of picking teams with the Republicans. I'll take the unemployed and you take the uber-rich. Here's a little something for both sides. The jobless get to keep their $300-a-week unemployment checks and the rich get to keep their Bush-era tax breaks. Happy now? And then Obama surprised the referees with a little original thinking: He lowered the payroll tax by two percentage points for a year. Less will be deducted from workers' paychecks for Social Security.