It seems that political panic puts paid to partisanship. In a telephone lovefest, George W. Bush and the Democratic congressional leadership reached agreement on the need for and the contours of a fiscal stimulus package, or what the president prefers to call an "economic growth package." They agreed that the economy is slowing, or worse, and that it needs care and feeding not only from the Fed, but from the feds. Soon, your check will be in the mail.

Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke took a page from the great musical Chicago when he appeared before Congress. Like murderess Velma Kelly (played in the film by Catherine Zeta-Jones), she sang, "I simply cannot do it alone." And got the same response from the assembled politicians as the dancer received from her ogling fans, "Those two-bit Johnnys .  .  . cheer[ed] the best attraction in town."

Politicians of almost all stripes are trampling over each other in their rush to come to the aid of Bernanke, and add a fiscal stimulus to the monetary policy weapons he has deployed to shore up the economy. What started as a possible $70 billion stimulus has been bid up to $150 billion, a bit more than 1 percent of GDP. Even that larger sum seems "reasonable" to Bernanke, who believes that anything in the $100 billion range would have a "significant" positive impact. If history is any guide, by the time the legislative Christmas tree is fully decorated, the final package will cost close to $200 billion.

One of the interesting aspects of this dash for cash is that many of the Ladies and Gentlemen Bountifuls were until very recently arguing that the subprime mortgage collapse and other problems related to the housing sector would not infect the larger economy. Bernanke's initial optimism faded in the face of reports of rising unemployment, falling house prices and sales, a slowing manufacturing sector, and a new cautious mood by previously profligate consumers. So he is now of a mind to cut interest rates, a lot and soon, even if that risks increasing an already uncomfortably high inflation rate.

Then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson turned gloomy. The former Goldman Sachs boss at first doubted that the problems in the subprime mortgage market would slop over into the general economy. But he is now saying privately that we are facing a recession, and one that will not be the short, sweet corrective characteristic of recent such downturns. Whether he is excessively influenced by his old buddies in the financial sector, some of whom are salving their battered egos by cashing multimillion dollar goodbye checks, and others of whom are busy peddling chunks of their firms to Asian and Arab sovereign wealth funds at prices that would have been considered bargains only a few months ago, we can't tell. No matter: Paulson's early opposition to vigorous government intervention is no more, and the president has put him in charge of negotiating final details with Congress.

Then influential economists on both sides of the aisle made it officially bipartisan: We need a fiscal stimulus. Larry Summers, Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary before moving on to further fame as Harvard's president, and Marty Feldstein, long an important voice among Republican policymakers, both decided that some sort of fiscal stimulus is necessary. About $75 billion, right away, would satisfy Summers, now considered a piker by most politicians; Feldstein would wait until there is proof of further weakening in the labor market, at which point he would jolt the economy awake with a variety of stimulants. The politicians are disinclined to be that patient--"What do we want? We want to mail checks to constituents. When do we want it? Now!"