The House Natural Resources Committee has been [trying for a little while](http://naturalresources.house.gov/Issues/Issue/?IssueID=5921) to pin environmentalists with responsibility for the man-made drought in California. How can a drought be man-made? In this case, irrigation to the state's Central Valley was scaled back after environmentalists argued successfully in court that diverting the water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta was killing endangered fish. The man-made drought is simply the Valley dealing with its natural water supply, or lack thereof.

According to Politico, First Lady Michelle Obama is busy trying to get House Democrats to pass the Senate's version of child nutrition legislation that would provide a little bit more money for every school lunch, update nutrition guidelines, and make it easier for lower-income children to enroll in the free-lunch program. The problem with the Senate version, of course, is that it offsets the cost of the bill by cutting into scheduled food-stamp increases down the road.

Members of the House are traveling back to Washington today so that they can vote on the $26 billion aid bill to the states that the Senate passed last week. Annie Lowrey at the Washington Independent tells us, however, that some members, led by Rep. Rose DeLauro of Connecticut, are upset about the source of offset funding -- rolling back the food-stamp expansion called for in the stimulus bill.

As Lowrey notes, the problem is that pushing through a different bill from what the Senate has already passed would require the Senate to rush back from recess.

For some time now, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has urged an extension of a provision of the stimulus bill that allowed welfare funds to fully or partially subsidize the wages of low-income workers who are newly hired by private employers. The fund, known as the TANF Emergency Fund, is set to expire Sept. 30. That may jeopardize the jobs of many workers and employers in the states that used the fund to spur hiring among employers who wouldn't hire otherwise, and get jobs for low-income workers who might not have otherwise gotten one.

Today, TAPPED will feature a series of guest posts on progressive solutions to the unemployment problem. Harold Meyerson is the editor-at-large for The American Prospect.

As usual, the redoubtable Dean Baker has a slew of smart suggestions -- all of them Keynesian -- on how to restart our stalled economy. I particularly like his work-sharing suggestion, partly modeled on the German experience (and German unemployment is at least 2 points lower than ours just now).

The analysts and officials I've spoken to today generally see three goals in the new budget for fiscal year 2011: Deal with the short-term problems of the recession, lower medium- and long-term deficits, and make good policy with a focus on "middle-class security." I'm going to post about all of these things, but let's start with how the budget addresses the recession.

Typically, whenever you see a project funded by the stimulus, there is a sign near by pointing out that it was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It lets the public know what they're getting for their money. It turns out the signs are pretty expensive -- weird, right? can't they just get cheaper signs? -- and that some states are forgoing that expenditure to put their stimulus money toward something more tangible.