No hurry

Jacob Oost: Congress has economists? Who are these guys and what Eastern European mail order diploma mill did they get their degrees from?

I suppose that depends on how you define an economist. If you define a professional economist as someone who was granted a degree in economics and currently undertakes economic analysis within the framework of economic theory (whatever that means), then government is rife with economists. Even the former Soviet Union, so I've been told, had a great number of economists working on all sorts of allocation issues, which would be necessary in a planned economy.

Perhaps you're using a different definition of economist.

Whoa whoa whoa!!!! Stop the presses!!! "Congressional economists"?!

Congress has economists? Who are these guys and what Eastern European mail order diploma mill did they get their degrees from?

This is like finding out Osama Bin Laden has a New Age wellness advisor, or that Jesse Ventura has a ballet instructor, or that Barack Obama has a terrorist friend!

BTW, John Heater, right on. Economics badly needs to do away with its phonies, people like Krugman who espouse clearly debunked policy prescriptions. They are economic quacks, selling fiscal stimulus snake oil.

noahpoah: I'm very upset that rural broadband internet is being sacrificed at the altar of political expediency.

Won't someone thing of the pornography-deprived hillbillies?

I'm quite content with that decision. Can you imagine all of the bestiality we'd be subject to on the Internet? Cletus, I really, really don't want to see you with your goat.

hammer: What amuses me is that all this stimulus needs to be "spent" at all. Apparently it never occured to the government that they aquire all their tax revenue from economic transactions. That being the case, simply lowering the tax rates would allow those who are economically active to be more economically active. They wouldn't have to decide where to spend it, but could just change the percentage they take away.

From my vantage point, here are two possible options for a government in today's setting:

1) implement stimulus through a tax relief strategy, putting a grand or two into the pockets of Americans over the course of a year or two (say $50/paycheck in an average family's budget).

2) implement a giant, inefficient, but highly visible spending bill rife with pork but including many infrastructure, social support, and similar crap.

Which position is going to most resonate with voters in four years? Who is going to have an iron-clad indefensible answer to the question "what did you do with your term in office?"

It sucks, but from a purely political standpoint the giant spending bill is a winner. The only way it's even remotely going to backfire is if the added pressure on the currency due to the enhanced debt load leads to significant inflation. But that's almost as hard to explain to Joe Six Pack as the positive effect of a tax relief program.

Sorry to be cynical, I'm just telling it as I see it.

What amuses me is that all this stimulus needs to be "spent" at all. Apparently it never occured to the government that they aquire all their tax revenue from economic transactions. That being the case, simply lowering the tax rates would allow those who are economically active to be more economically active. They wouldn't have to decide where to spend it, but could just change the percentage they take away.

I can personally confirm that the infrastructure stuff that came out of the House T&I Committee is garbage, if one cares about economic stimulus in 2009. I used to do capital improvement programming for major federal $ recipients and know how the game is played, and I can asure you, the T&I report and their public analysis of their infrastructure proposals is an absolute howler.

I'm very upset that rural broadband internet is being sacrificed at the altar of political expediency.

Won't someone thing of the pornography-deprived hillbillies?

What's new about any of this? Economists have known for literally decades that the "inside" lags in fiscal policy are long enough that virtually no countercyclical fiscal policy can come on line until well after the average recession has ended. Even most abnormally long recessions end before fiscal policy tools can take effect. The obvious conclusion is that countercyclical fiscal policy is useless, a purely theoretical construct of no practical value. Why do so many economists refuse to admit what their own work has established? I suspect those who won't make the admission are those who want to be given positions in the government or want to be consulted or want to feel important in some other way. We already have more than enough hacks and publicly funded whores running around. They are called politicians. Economists should stop trying to join that group and instead should start acting like the scientists they pretend to be.

rex pjesky: Paul Krugman, if direct fiscal stimulus is the only answer to our economic condition, and if the stimulus must be huge, how on earth can the government coordinate new spending fast enough.

If the goal is to use up the largest portion of money possible in the shortest timeframe, I propose all stimulus funds be managed by our finance sector.

Where are all the liberals who bitch and moan that allowing exploration for more oil won't yield immediate changes in the price and supply now that our Dear Leader is proposing government programs that won't take effect for years and years?

...7% is being optimistic?

$26 billion in infrastructure spending.....FANATSTIC.... we will take it out of the bomb budget.

Its A BEAUTIFUL DAY! ... to be an optimist.

And what about the 182 billion in ed spending...how long will it take to spend that?

Paul Krugman, if direct fiscal stimulus is the only answer to our economic condition, and if the stimulus must be huge, how on earth can the government coordinate new spending fast enough.

(I am waiting for someone to say they can't spend the money fast enough becuase there are not enough workers.)

Sounds to me like they're greasing the skids for a long slide down and hoping to soften the political blow that's coming in two years when things are worse, not better.

I think that Obama and all of his horse holders should read, and then re-read, Amity Shales' "The Forgotten Man."

They won't, though.

Looking at these figures, how correct is the "crowding out" story? More than 50%? 75%? 90%?

What about the portions of the program that seek to prevent cuts in state and local spending?

And, of course, there are the tax cuts.