So this is an economic recovery? The official numbers say it is, but they smell something like unclean feet from the 1970s, slightly fishy, definitely off. This week brought fresh evidence that if there ever will be a "normal" again, it will be a "new normal," entirely different from the old "normal" and not really any good at all.

On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Moody's is considering a downgrade of Uncle Sam's debt rating from the "AAA" it has held forever. Such a downgrade would not be taken until 2013, but the possibility that such a move was even conceivable was stunning in itself. (Although maybe its Moody's way to scare the government off its recently announced probe of the rating services?)

The catalyst, of course, is runaway government spending. So what does the government do? Come up with more spending. The President unveils a "jobs program" that is actually a hijacking of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, better known as the bank bailout. Conceived and implemented by the Bush Administration, that program is credited with keeping the nation's financial system from collapse. It worked. It was to be paid back, with interest, and put directly toward paying down the debt the government took on to establish it.

Instead, it will, in Obama's words, be used to stimulate job creation by small business, speed up public works projects and provide rebates to people who make their homes more energy efficient. (Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was on the Hill today trying to defend the plan, which, some believe, may be illegal as it is not consistent with the intent of Congress when it appropriated the money.)

One interesting question that arises is this: Was not the $787 billion stimulus bill supposed to create new jobs with "shovel ready" projects that should be up and running by now? Where are the hardhats and the bulldozers and excavators and concrete and steel? According to Recovery.gov, the Administration's official stimulus propaganda site, less than a third of that money has been spent. Most of that went to sustain low-level and largely unnecessary state and local bureaucrat jobs, pay unemployment benefits and keep alive various social welfare programs.

So what's to become of the rest of the money? Looks like it's being held back until Spring 2010, when massive spending starts and continues right up to the mid-term elections as the Democrats in Congress try to buy votes to keep their majorities. And now the Administration says it needs more?

Then, of course, there came to pass the Environmental Protection Administration's edict that carbon dioxide, the stuff of the bubbles in beer and the air that trees breath, is a danger to human health. Under the "old normal," intelligent members of Congress would have responded with a law prohibiting the Administration from making any such decision. But this Congress, infected as it is with zealots and nitwits, will not do that. Either way, the EPA is, in effect, twisting arms in the Senate to get the Waxman energy bill passed there.

Finally came the Senate Democrats' new "compromise" health care plan, under which it is proposed that some 30-35 million more people be put on Medicare, while half a trillion dollars is cut from Medicare, without raising the national deficit. That this could be proposed with straight face is astounding. Thankfully, debate on that debacle has been tabled, temporarily, as the Senate turns its attention to URGENT SPENDING MATTERS!

This Congress and Administration are increasingly a reflection of the people who elected them: subprime borrowers. Moody's has apparently figured that out. Lenders will follow, and in the event you haven't checked recently, the subprime lenders are gone for good.

Welcome to the new normal.