Joe Lieberman Stimulus Hero

And yet he couldn’t budge the two people with whom he spent the summer, McCain and McCain’s long time companion Graham.

Well said Joe.
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I think Obama is naturally inclined not to be vindictive but he also has a longer view of things than nearly any politician I can think of – GWB’s insistence that History will see him differently not withstanding.

And yet he tried mightily to put a man in the White House who has a “cult-like in their devotion to failed economic policies” and who would have addressed this economic meltdown with tax cuts.
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But you are right, good for Obama taking the long view.

via sully, Specter speaks some truth:
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"When I came back to the cloak room after coming to the agreement a week ago today, one of my colleagues said, ‘Arlen, I’m proud of you.’ My Republican colleague said, ‘Arlen, I’m proud of you.’ I said, ‘Are you going to vote with me?’ And he said, ‘No, I might have a primary.’ And I said, ‘Well, you know very well I’m going to have a primary.’ … I think there are a lot of people in the Republican caucus who are glad to see this action taken without their fingerprints, without their participation."
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And I find myself with new found respect for the “centrist three” who had the courage to do the right thing, even if many of us found fault in the details.

The stimulus is a risk for both sides. Obama and the Dems now own the economy as the stimulus will be expected to turn things around almost immediately (the GOP will not let them forget that point…).

For the GOP, they have become the party of “no” and blatant obstructionists to anything not matching the strictest interpretations of conservative dogma. The public will rally behind them if the stimulus tanks, but there’s a better chance of the GOP continuing to erode support among moderates and swing voters who supported anything besides tax cuts.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Matt, I think it is worth noting that the repugs plan to continue to campaign against the stimulus bill, and to hold hearings and “teevee availabilities” to tell America that it won’t and can’t work, increases the possibility that it won’t, in fact, work. Their utter failure in a time of crisis to come together and do all they can to ensure the plan does work, is no better than giving aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war.

Good post, Joe. I can’t count the times that I and others have questioned Obama’s actions, thinking that we know what would be best for him to do. He always takes his time and acts more gracious than any human I’ve ever met and, despite the cheerleading from the side, chooses to give others second and third chances to participate. It is already serving him well.

The problems we face are significantly more fundemental than whether Joe Lieberman is a DINO or a RINO. The entire McCain campaign and to this day the Republican strategy revolves around the fact that the public doesn’t want to think to hard about details but are more likely to trust someone with easy slogans for answers rather than so-called experts. I still view ‘bittergate’ and the Natalie Maines backlash as defining moments in American culture whan proud ignorance became rallying cries to shout down anything that reeked of intelligence or caution.
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The current Senate makeup still reflects the fact that there are vast swaths of this Country who would rather shoot themselves in the foot than see someone else gain an unearned benefit from government.
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Joe Lieberman’s relative importance is merely a symptom of a much larger problem.

PD- “proud ignorance” Accurate and funny. But I’ve been using “baldfaced obtuseness” lately. I’m running out of euphemisms.

Well, you’d think he’d have been able to convince at least one more GOP Senator to spare Sherrod Brown the trip back to Washington after his mother’s wake to cast the 60th vote. I mean honestly, after the sickened ovation that Ted Stevens got, we were reminded about how the Senate is so tight-knit and takes care of its own. Would it have killed another GOP Senator to vote for this and spare Brown the trip? What about George Voinovich — his fellow Senator from Ohio and someone not even running for reelection?

rickT – comity is a one-way street.

If Mitch McConnell (or, say, Judd Gregg) were a Mensch…

Interesting post wvng, although after my optimism yesterday I found myself wondering with one of the commenters, if such a deal were made could we trust them to keep it.

Guess Joe Scarborough was too centrist last week on NPR’s Weekend Edition, this week they had Dorothy Rabinowitz who gave a horrible screed on her version of bipartisanship with no kind word for Mr. Obama. It was shocking.
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Then I read this from Jamison Foser and calmed down a little. http://mediamatters.org/items/200902130023?f=h_column

Steve Benen in doing great work today:
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As part of his ongoing offensive against the man who defeated him, John McCain continued to lash out at President Obama yesterday, blasting the economic stimulus package poised to become law. As the Senate debate was wrapping up, the Arizona Republican said, referring to the White House, “I hope they’ve learned a lesson.”
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…it seems that the president and his team have, to borrow McCain’s language, learned a lesson.
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I don’t doubt that President Obama will continue to have a dialog with congressional Republicans. He’ll keep them apprised of his intentions; he’ll hear them out when they have complaints; and he’ll maintain a respectful tone. But after the stimulus fight, the president, I suspect, has "learned a lesson" about how to engage a party that has philosophical, practical, and strategic goals that are wholly at odds with his own.

Klein’s veneration for a bill that was passed without allowing anyone time to read it (in direct opposition to Obama’s campaign promises) is startling. Ignoring the fact that fiscal stimulus packages do not usually work and the widely known fact amongst the profession that the multiplier will not be 1.5 (as the Obama people claim) – how can any man or woman with any modicum of respect for the institutions of the Republic be impressed that a man has, already in his first month of power, demonstrated a willingness to cry emergency to get any thing passed. The obviously faulty logic behind the thinking that “it’s not perfect but we can’t afford to wait” is deeply disconcerting from a man who campaigned on the mantra of “hope and change” so early in his presidency.

If JoeK wants to engage in the swamp, it would be interesting to hear his thoughts on the Foser essay. Given that JoeK occasionally plays at the fringes of media criticism.

oh lidster – pointing and laughing
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Great point. Nich change from listening to cable pundits (and some from the left) who imply Obama is a wimp when not being vindictive to Lieberman. I just don’t know if we (and I include myself) are ready to really lay down our swords after these last terrible eight years of Bush/Rovian politics…I guess it’s longer when including the horrible Ken Starr-Whitewater prosecution.

Man are we lucky to have Obama. I can’t imagine how this would’ve played out with Clinton/Pelosi as being the target of the Republican bullying hords. It would be very ugly indeed. I’m really gald Clinton is working within the Obama umbrella of civility. His decency to Lieberman and Clinton both are inspiring and instructive to us all.

Argh! This software!!! Again:
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Great point. Nice change from listening to cable pundits (and some from the left) who imply Obama is a wimp when not being vindictive to Lieberman. I just don’t know if we (and I include myself) are ready to really lay down our swords after these last terrible eight years of Bush/Rovian politics…I guess it’s longer when including the horrible Ken Starr-Whitewater prosecution.
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Man, are we lucky to have Obama. I can’t imagine how this would’ve played out with Clinton/Pelosi as being the target of the Republican bullying hordes. It would be very ugly indeed. I’m really glad Clinton is working within the Obama umbrella of civility. His decency to Lieberman and Clinton both are inspiring and instructive to us all.

“Klein’s veneration for a bill that was passed without allowing anyone time to read it (in direct opposition to Obama’s campaign promises) is startling.”
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Several hours passed between the debating of the bill and holding the vote open for a further 4 hours for Brown to vote gave them even more time.
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On top of that, right here http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/arra_public_review/ is the text of the bill.
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There is no ‘fact’ that stimulus bills don’t work. Quite the opposite. See Wiki and SourceWatch for FDR, New Deal, and the Great Depression. Wiki, while not citable, links out to literally thousands of pages of documentation of the historical affects of the New Deal, and the large majority agree that by 1934-1935, the Depression had ended. A few opinions by the occasional FDR hater is not going to counter what are literally thousands of pages of source material stating otherwise from economists observing the effects from 1935 on. SourceWatch give an in depth look at the actual laws as well as opinions from many sources about the effectiveness of the same.
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Hope and change is alive and well.

I’m sorry to learn that slow reading ability is a sudden problem among Republicans. They seemed to get through the PATRIOT act in record time…..

Im going to say here what I said at huffpo when I read the same article
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BULLSH*T
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The “hero” Joe Lieberman didn’t do a got damn thing. If you actually read the article about the only impressive thing in it is that he yelled “we got to get it done”. Hell even Arlen Specter said he didn’t do much.
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He was important,” said Sen. Specter, who, along with Collins and her fellow Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, broke ranks to join the Democrats. “But the critical talks occurred between Senator Reid, Senator Collins and, for awhile, Senator Voinovich. Those were the principal discussions.“

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Now lest we forget, this muthaphucka CAMPAIGNED for Susan Collins. You know the woman who helped strip more than 500,000 jobs from the bill. Maybe just maybe had he campaigned for whichever Dem running against her we could have won the seat. At the least taken her down a peg.
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Second this sorry muthaphucka campaigned for the ass hole who LED THE CHARGE AGAINST THE BILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Third what exactly did he do? What did he negotiate to keep in the bill? Read the article carefully, not a got damn thing.
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This is a load of sh*tty propaganda but the Village LOVES them some centrists so its not suprising that one of the few times you will EVER see Joke Line link to a HuffPo article was to a story elevating Joe LIEberman. I imagine today and tomorrow it will be linked to by the Villagers in the NY Times and the Washington Post as well. Please don’t fall for propaganda.
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The HuffPo author states that on domestic issues Joe LIEberman is a liberal. But he supported John McCain’s health care policy, privatizing SS, torture, and drill baby drill. Give me a break. Now I guess we are handing out medals for doing what he is SUPPOSED to do. Sorry but I for on am not buying it.
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And for those who think I am just going overboard because its LIEberman I ask you to go through the article and find something to copy and paste from the story that describes his “crucial” role. Show me something he helped to keep in the bill. Judd Gregg AND Ray Lahood both said the three Republicans voting for the bill were the same three whoo were in play the whole time. So show me something he actually did from the article and I will take it all back. Otherwise wake up and realize that you are being rolled by some serious LIEberman spin.

“widely known fact”= BS

Just to illustrate in stark terms what kind of ass holes we are dealing with check out how these Republicans touted provisions in the stimulus bill that will help their districts in press releases WITHOUT MENTIONING that they voted AGAINST the bill.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/62181.html

Good link IVB.
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And I know I shouldn’t bother but the phrase, “demonstrated a willingness to cry emergency to get any thing passed”, classic!
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Where did those WMD’s go?
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What’s the terror alert today? Orange? Tap my phone, I don’t feel safe.

There could have been a bigger hero in the stimulus bill if another one of the moderate Republicans had voted yes and allowed Sherrod Brown to stay at his mother’s wake and funeral in Ohio. They knew he’d have to leave her wake and funeral, fly back to DC, and cast the 60th vote, but nooooo, they made him do it anyway. Stay classy, GOP.

‘m sorry to learn that slow reading ability is a sudden problem among Republicans.
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Given that they were writing bills in the dark of night, behind closed doors, permitting no hearings on them, this is another laughing and pointing moment.
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And a time to remember What Digby Said about republicans’ shameless hypocrisy:
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Hypocrisy

wow. Lieberman does some intense self-promotion, and Joe buys it hook, line, and sinker.
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The simple fact is that the GOP would have been committing political suicide had it stood in the way of a “stimulus” bill. There was no “compromise” necessary — sufficient votes from Republicans from would have been found to waive the 60 vote rule, allowing the bill to pass with a simple majority.
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THere was no need to “compromise”, and people like Lieberman and Nelson simply gummed up the works — and left us with a bill that is wholly inadequate as a response to the economic downturn.
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The GOP wants to have it both ways — a bill that slashed spending on social programs that would allieviate the impact of the recession on those most effective, and included counter-productive tax cuts — that they could still vote against. And thanx to Obama’s obsession with his image, they were able to achieve that.

Lieberman has always been a moderate-progressive on economic issues so his vote should not be a surprise…
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Joe Klein:
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That statement is misleading at best, disingenuous at worst.
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Lieberman has always been a centrist on economic issues, which means he votes for big government while demanding that the state use its power to promote social conservatism at home and hegemony abroad.
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Lieberman’s centrism on economic issues is classic, his effective message is “Shut up, we’re taking care of you, let us technocrats run things…you’ve got your handouts, don’t you? Now shut up and go back to worrying about your daughters’ virginity…”
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Voting for Great Society programs (or even Keynesian remedies to the current crisis) should not be mistaken for actual liberalism, in which the goal of empowering the state is to counter the power of corporate elites on behalf of populist movement.
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Centrists like yourself like to confuse the issue, Joe Klein, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see such muddying going on –you’ve been doing it for years.
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No, Lieberman isn’t “progressive on economic issues”. He’s just not a conservative or a liberal on economic issues, he takes the centrist position, which is largely in favor of the welfare state, albeit in its most nanny-esque, Robert Moses-style formulation. Promoting universal health insurance doesn’t mean that a centrist is a “liberal on some things”.
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Joe Lieberman is a centrist, Joe Klein. You know that.

pluk
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How many times do I have to say this THE BILL COULDN’T PASS WITH A SIMPLE MAJORITY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Jeebus I swear some people just don’t get it. That bill had to have 60 votes period because it imposed deficit spending. Do I really have to post the link to the rule again? I mean I have only done so maybe a half dozen times now.

In response… I said fiscal stimulus “usually do not work” – obviously this is largely contingent on the unemployment rate etc leading to different levels of crowding out of the private sector.

Anyhow, in response to the commenter who said:

Wiki, while not citable, links out to literally thousands of pages of documentation of the historical affects of the New Deal, and the large majority agree that by 1934-1935, the Depression had ended.

This is just silly. The depression was certainly not over by 1935. Anyway, here is a paper by Obama’s CEA chair Christine Romer arguing that tax cuts are more effective than fiscal stimulus – http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~cromer/RomerDraft307.pdf

Here is another famous paper by Uhlig that demonstrates the greater effectiveness of tax cuts – http://sfb649.wiwi.hu-berlin.de/papers/pdf/SFB649DP2005-039.pdf

One of the most potent and important arguments for tax cuts as opposed to large spending is given by Harvard professor, Alesina, in this WSJ article – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123249646698200289.html

Of course, as is well known, practically the whole Harvard faculty, most prominently Barro and Mankiw have argued against the fiscal stimulus.

However, the greatest sin of your rebuttal was your antiquated belief that FDR’s New Deal was responsible for getting the United States out of the Depression. Undeniably the New Deal had a stimulative effect, but again, this completely absurd claim that fiscal stimulus was responsible for getting the United States out of the Great Depression is refuted in this paper, again by Obama’s CEA chair, Romer – http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~cromer/great_depression.pdf

In case you do not wish to read it the most relevant passage is this: “Given the key roles of monetary contraction and the gold standard in causing the Great Depression, it is not surprising that currency devaluations and monetary expansion became the leading sources of recovery throughout the world….the new spending programs initiated by the New Deal had little direct expansionary effect on the economy.”

Romer, along with Friedman and Bernanke are probably the greatest economic experts on the Great Depression. Not all of their results were identical but each recognized that it was not the New Deal that ended the Depression.

This is obviously only looking at one issue. We could easily assess the effectiveness of Japan in the 90′s but then you could claim they did not spend enough. Remember, however, that the first Keynesians were the Nazis and there is significant evidence that their huge public spending programs DID increse GDP. However, there is ample evidence that illustrates this result was largely a consequence of the reduction in wages enforced by the the Nazis and thus average income decreased – http://www.nber.org/papers/w14560.pdf

SG:
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Paul Lukasiak isn’t disputing your correct account of the emergency spending measure rules.
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Paul says sufficient votes from Republicans from would have been found to waive the 60 vote rule, which (as you know) is consistent with the emergency spending primer to which you helpfully linked.

Thank you, Joe. Too often we are left to wonder about the “logic” employed by Obama and endorsed by the beltway elites. It is refreshing to have it expressly laid out.
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Do I agree? No. Absolutely not. It was entirely unnecessary for Obama to elevate the importance of Lieberman, Collins, Snowe and Specter. At the end of the day, they all needed (and wanted) to be on this train far more than Obama needed them on it.
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Good luck.

Read this Greenwald column this morning and thought of both Stuart Zechman and Paul Lukasiak.
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/13/pressure/index.html
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ps: I agree with Greenwald.

CEA chair Christine Romer arguing that tax cuts are more effective than fiscal stimulus – http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~cromer/RomerDraft307.pdf
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hey dumb ass, did you actually read the paper? It doesn’t say ANYTHING about fiscal stimulus. The paper is about the effects of tax policy on economic output of the country. And the authors in the conclusions that their methods are imperfect. I know you might not realize this but when you post links people at THIS site actually click on them and check your claims. You have just proven yourself a moron and will from now on be labeled as such.
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Go on over to redstate of free republic, they are a lot more trusting there. lol

SZ
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Isn’t that like saying we wouldn’t need any eggs because we could have found eggs to cook anyway? How does that make any sense?

I’m sorry, I’ll just go ahead and link and quote to the statute in question:
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. (b) Supermajority Waiver and Appeals-
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. (1) WAIVER- This section may be waived or suspended in the Senate only by the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn.
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. (2) APPEALS- Appeals in the Senate from the decisions of the Chair relating to any provision of this section shall be limited to 1 hour, to be equally divided between, and controlled by, the appellant and the manager of the bill or joint resolution, as the case may be. An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members of the Senate, duly chosen and sworn, shall be required to sustain an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order raised under this section.

SZ
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To revise and extend my remarks, quite a few of us thought that in the end a few Republicans in the house would switch over and vote for the bill when it was all said and done. How did that work out for us? We can claim that we could have found 3 republicans to waive the point of order without changing the bill but that is the height of wishful thinking. We aren’t dealing with rational people here. Its about time people started realizing that.

So to appeal having to have 60 votes for a measure you need 60 Senators to vote for the appeal. Again catch 22

SG:
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You can argue with Paul’s contention that the votes could be “found”, but that’s different than saying (inaccurately):
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THE BILL COULDN’T PASS WITH A SIMPLE MAJORITY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES
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You and I (and Paul) know that the bill could pass with a simple majority if the votes could be found to pass the waiver enumerated in the statute.
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It’s literally true that the bill could pass with a simple majority in a circumstance, according to the law.
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Paul is saying that he believes that the Republicans could have been forced or persuaded to “vote for it before they voted against it” by voting for the waiver, but against the stimulus bill, thereby winning the former, but losing the latter. Since the media hasn’t been doing a competent job explaining this relatively simple procedural matter (as you’ve pointed out time and again), it’s somewhat plausible.
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Paul Lukasiak: please correct me if I’m mis-stating your position.

SZ
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Ok the question is do you believe that? I seem to recall Snowe and Colllins BOTH saying they couldn’t vote for the bill. So without talking about what if’s I am asking you your personal opinion if you think we could have found 3 republicans to overturn the point of order so the bill could pass without any Republican votes? And again my statement is true because you would still need the 60 votes to overcome the point of order.

SG:
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I don’t know. I’m thinking about it.

As a long time constituent of Arlen Specter, I have no doubt that his vote could have been pulled back if the Republicans really didn’t want the bill to pass. I think they worked to get as much as they could in the way of tax cuts, etc., then let it pass without a filibuster (don’t know that they thought Reid would make them actually do it, but maybe they weren’t quite sure with Rahm at his back.) Arlen is a master at saying one thing but voting another. He put out an early statement on opposition to the revised FISA and continued with an even stronger statement, then voted for it on the day. Same cr@p with the habeus corpus.
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His re-election worry is from the right and if he doesn’t win the primary, it doesn’t matter which Democrat he would be running against. Remember when he was named Head of the Judiciary Committee and the right threw a hissy fit and in order to stay he had to promise to support all right wing judges in spite of his lifelong pro-choice stance.

Four opinions against many hundreds? You cite Romer against literally hundreds? I don’t have post links, as there are hundreds of pages of documents and historical inormation available that literaly put your paltry collection to shame. But here’s a start, since I must, but bear in mind, these are links to other links!
Wiki: FDR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDR
Wiki: Great Depression:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
Wiki: New Deal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal
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SourceWatch: FDR
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Franklin_D._Roosevelt
SourceWatch: Great Depression:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?search=Great+Depression&go=Go

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You looze…
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Bernanke and Paulson handed out $7,200,000,000,000 w/o oversight, making it the largest Treasury looting in history.
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Economics 101 (No name bandying necessary):
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What happens when you hand out money you don’t have?
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Jeopardy.wav
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I like your touch at the end, equating with the Nazis, but really, I think your day is done, you have no credibility (only 4 opinions) and I’m not really concerned about “Keynesian” anything. It’s pointless.
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Oh, and there are tax cuts, but they are middle class tax cuts. Go look at the website I posted.

Jane Hamsher takes down Joke Line’s assertation that LIEberman was a stimulus hero.
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http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/14/joe-lieberman-a-stimulus-hero-not-likely/

SZ
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I gotta run but I will reiterate this last point, to ever get to a simple majority vote you still would have had to have a supermajority vote first. You couldn’t have the former without the latter.

Lieberman is a tool. He got used for his intended purpose.
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At the next opportunity, his poltical career should be ended, maybe quietly, maybe with a lot of fanfare, but ended nonetheless.

sg, before you go, post the link to the rule that constrains the vote, will you?

oh, wait, nevermind!

“Romer, along with Friedman and Bernanke are probably the greatest economic experts on the Great Depression. Not all of their results were identical but each recognized that it was not the New Deal that ended the Depression.”
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I’m gonna say here that given their views, they cannot possibly be experts, then.
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The effectiveness of the New Deal on the depression is a debate that has been dead now for any number of years, just like the debate over how old the Earth is, or where birds are on the tree of life.
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You GOPers have a bad habit of taking facts out of context, like a handful of raisins, then dropping them into a purely speculative confection that you then try to legitimize. In other words, you have your real experts and you have your ‘Usshers’…

Not all of their results were identical but each recognized that it was not the New Deal that ended the Depression.

There’s a mile of difference between the standard historical agreement that the New Deal did not completely end the Depression and the current GOP revisionism that the New Deal somehow made the Depression worse.

No matter how you measure it, the first four years of the New Deal witnessed phenomenal growth. GDP just about tripled, unemployment shrank from 24% to 10%, etc. etc.

Yes, the New Deal didn’t solve everything, World War II was what finally did it. But what the GOP doesn’t seem to get is that WWII spending was essentially New Deal spending on steroids. All the government spending and government employment that the GOP tut-tuts in the New Deal was vastly expanded in WWII and that’s what pulled us all the way out.

My God… I was only linking to papers I had read. Never did I suggest there were not opposing opinions.

Firstly I’m not a “GOPer” I just disagree with the science behind fiscal stimulus. I never endorsed anything Bernanke did as Fed Chair but any mistakes he has made in that position should not diminish his considerable achievements as an academic.

I actually agree with you that Paulson and Bernanke oversaw a disastrous “looting” of the treasury. But remember who passed the TARP package. It could never have passed without the Dems and the final package was written mostly by Chris Dodd.

As for the debate regarding the effectiveness of the New Deal being over that’s just untrue. This famous paper http://www.jstor.org/pss/2123771 demonstrates just how divisive the issue of the New Deal is amongst economists.

Regarding your citataion of the wikipedia article on the Great Depression…. you do realise that they regularly cite Bernanke, Romer, Rothbard and of course the famous Friedman/Schwarz paper not to mention a host of others who completely oppose your opinion!?

Read SG’s firedoglake link. Her take is a bit more sophisticated than JK’s.

Hey it passed … subject done!

The new deal was what 70 years ago and everything is more sophisticated than it was then! None of the rules of that period apply today… different employment, different manufacturing, different banking issues, different securities issues, different techonology, different everything….that’s why all of this argument is so non-sensical.

When Republicans bring up the New Deal success or failure the typical Democrat Party response should be that was 70 years ago, you are living in the past and nothing from that time compares to our situation today.

Ottoman88, whilst it is definitely a point of view that has strong support, the belief that “World War II was what finally did it” and “All the government spending and government employment that the GOP tut-tuts in the New Deal was vastly expanded in WWII and that’s what pulled us all the way out.”

One of the major arguments against fiscal stimulus and the one I believe in is that most (not all) of this gov’t spending will merely replace private spending rather than create new spending. WWII is a perfect example of this.

As Cullen and Fishback write in this paper: “The results show that the World War II spending had virtually no effect on the growth rates in consumption that we examined….Several factors contributed to this relative lack of impact. World War II spending often required a conversion of plants designed for civilian good production into military factories and back again over the 9 year period.” http://www.nber.org/papers/w12801

Essentially WWII saw immense amounts of crowding out and private expenditure was simply replaced for public expenditure with no benefit to the average citizen. Obviously the Obama stimulus pales in comparison to the WWII spending so nothing of similar size will be repeated but do not be surprised if the effect of this bill is to replace one type of spending with another at no serious benefit.

53_3
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I am back but just for a moment, kidster is misrepresenting Christine Romer’s views and the papers she has published. She is fully on board for the stimulus as she is one of President Obama’s economic advisors. The House Republicans distorted her work to try to justify their ill concieved “alternative plan” chocked full of tax cuts. If you want to see what SHE had to say about their plan and about the need for fiscal stimulus instead of listening to kidster put words in her mouth you can go here.
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http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/01/christie-romer-is-confirmed.html

And lidster’s solution is what?

“Regarding your citataion of the wikipedia article on the Great Depression….”
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Of course! It demonstrates two biases, even:
1. The most recent are the most quoted [time bias]
2. It shows without a doubt that the same few are quoted over and over again on the dissenting side.
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You must know, just like other debates on historical issues, the preponderance of evidence and historical documentation are against you, and by many many thousands of pages of documentation. These dissenters are collectively all recent, all in the current GOP mold, and all far younger than those economists that were historically and temporally much closer to the truth.
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Supply side economics is a bias in itself, coloring how events are viewed long after the actors are gone and the props are put away.
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As for your not being a ‘GOPer’, why don’t you try to avoid sly allusions to Nazis, then. It’s neither relevant, as the surrounding economics during that time in Germany do not apply here, nor is it relevant as an economic model of what happens with “stimulus”.
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And further, here is an even harder nut to crack, and it’s one that doesn’t even take one strong in economics to figure out:
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First, the assumptions:
Outright issuance of cash is more effective than a tax cut
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Ok. Bernanke and Paulson handed out $7,200,000,000,000. It got put into a black box labelled ‘producers’ (Tell me these recipiants were consumers! Go ahead…).
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Now, if a “rising tide floats all boats”, then, where is that rising tide? If supply-side economics had more than a grain of truth in it, we would have seen some boats starting to float, even if I took away that assumption.
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Ok, they poured four times the US GDP into the supply side and what happened?
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Very easy answer:
Absolutely nothing!
No easing of credit, no rising tide, not even a slowing of jobloss. And being supply side economics is what it is, it doesn’t even matter what the exact purpose of that handout was!
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Conclusion:
.
Supply side economics does not work as it has been touted to do.
.
As if the past eight years weren’t enough…
.

Thanks SG, lidster is relying on the few ‘Usshers’ out there to cobble up a faux debate. There is none. His guys are economic idealogues.
.
He needs to drop Romer from the rolls of those he quotes from.
.
He really is a GOPer…

lidster:
.
Not to intrude, but your, well, myopic obsession with the language, i.e. “the Depression had ended” or “The depression was certainly not over” or “getting the United States out of the Depression” is what’s confused you.
.
The idea that fiscal stimulus “ended the Depression” is obviously false, but nobody is arguing for that strawman.
.
The idea is not that FDR’s stimulus policies were waved like a magic wand through the air, seconds after which “the depression was over”.
.
The notion actually being argued is that the New Deal’s stimulative spending policies helped to end the Depression, not that they in and of themselves ceased the Depression. The New Deal was the beginning of the end of the Great Depression.
.
The semantics of “New Deal spending got us out of the Depression” are truly meant to convey “New Deal fiscal stimulus policy significantly ameliorated the worst unemployment effects of the Great Depression, helping to drastically reduce unemployment from 25% to 14% during the years 1933-37”
.
Citing the inability of New Deal fiscal stimulus to end the depression as evidence of the failure of stimulative spending to rapidly reduce unemployment from catastrophically high levels is a rhetorical game.
.
If you asked people whether it was more important to “end the recession” or to “create jobs and reduce unemployment”, I’m sure they’d be fine living with a recession if they had the prospect of secure incomes.

If you gave folks a plan that would “end the recession in 10 years, but reduce unemployment by 2% a year starting in three months”, I’m sure that they’d think that plan was relatively successful.
.
Job-creating stimulus spending didn’t end the depression, you’re correct, but those folks who found jobs during the four years when the unemployment rate was nearly cut in half would probably have said that you’re making a lot of hay out of semantics.

There is a question of the benchmark, also, SZ.
.
What contitutes the ‘End of the Depression’?
.
There are a lot off data out there that point to ’34 and ’35 as a return to the beginnings of normalcy. Dropping unemployment rates are a very good indicator that an economic downturn of any type is ending.
.
Further, there are many, many aspects of the pioneering infrastructure projects that made possible the reocoveries that WWII brought(a very incomplete list):
.
A national highway system
A national grid
A national health network
A national agriculture program
.
The impacts these had in the years from 1934 to the late ’40s are all attributable, in large part, to the legislation that created these projects. This must be included in any figuring of the New Deal’s impacts on American economny as a whole, and cannot be separtated from it.

I’m with NewFL. The New Deal argument is so pointless I’m surprised you guys are spending so much time on it. Kidster is obviously low hanging fruit. I think we should spend more time talking about “Super Jew” and how he saved stimulus and thus the world.

Hey everyone, go easy on lidster…he’s not a GOPer, despite his banging on right wing talking points. He is just very, very, very concerned. And at least he didn’t go all the way and say that the Nazis were liberals, so he’s got that going for him.
.
So Lieberman is the stimulus hero because he pushed Ben Nelson through a press conference? I’d like to push Ben around a little myself….what, does that make me f@cking Superman? This is another bullsh!t CW in it’s infancy. The MSM’s feeling Joe Lieberman’s pain and wants to help out an old buddy down on his luck. They always take care of their own.

2cute4prison:
True, but there’s not much more to say, at least on my part, that Joe is wrong, Liebermann’s not a hero, and Liebermann is a tool that Obama used to get the deal through.
.
You get guys like lidster who try to cast doubt on and revise history (look how the GOP attempted to revise Civil Rights to suit their agenda!) by calling on a few naysayers who all collectively have a political axe to grind.
.
It’s kind like the exoneration of Sarah Palin by that ethics board which consisted of pro-Palin appointees.
.
That is not the way history is done…

Now you wouldn’t be insinuating that Lidster is a concern troll would you, cincy?
.
Naaaaaaahhhhh. Couldn’t be.

Actually I don’t have a problem with the article, just the title. It should read “Obama allows backstabbing Lieberman to not look like a douche for a day.” It’s really more about Obama’s amazing restraint and forward thinking than it is about Joe L.’s amazing legislative skills.
.
And since when is talking Rethugs off a ledge a good thing? We want them there, only briefly of course, before taking the quick way down.

SG is correct, one of my citations of Romer was incorrect (her paper purely discusses tax cuts, not spending) but all other citations remain valid. However, in reponse to Delong’s post you should read http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/search?q=brad+delong+romer

Regarding Romer’s assertions that the Great Depression ended largely due to increases in the money supply I am correct.

53_3 I never defended any of the actions taken by Paulson and Bernanke with TARP so what you’re on about it is neither here nor there.

There was no insiduous Nazi allusion in my post it was a reference to economic policy that highlights some of the ineffectiveness of public spending.

Stuart, I never argued that the New Deal had no stimulative effect. I merely suggested it was not the primary factor behind the recovery and there were several posters who did suggest that to be the case. I believe it was an increase in the money supply that was by far the most dominant factor and this view is widely held.

My major contention with what you have to say is that you attribute a majority of the job-growth from 33-37 as being a result of the New Deal. But isn’t it plausible that much of that job-growth was instead a corollary of an increase in the money supply? That is what Friedman and Schwarz argued and that is what I believe.

Of course President Obama’s softball handling of Joe Lieberman COULD have sent the signal that let the Rethugs know they wouldn’t face any blowback if they pissed in his face thus igniting this firestorm against the stimulus package. But why focus on what reprecussions might have come from Joe Lieberman keeping his chairmanship after he gave the Democratic caucus and President Obama his ass to kiss this election season?
.
lol
.
This is one time when I don’t mind saying “I told you so”

This current winger jag on attacking/diminishing FDR is interesting to me.
They have spent years trying to make Reagan=FDR as well as Clinton=Nixon.
I guess this is just the next step.
At least it keeps them distracted from causing more trouble with the problems of 2009

“But isn’t it plausible that much of that job-growth was instead a corollary of an increase in the money supply?”
.
Where did that money come from, lidster?
.
It’s a “chicken or the egg” argument. The New Deal legislation preceeded any decrease in job loss and unemployment rates, so no, your theory is not tenable. The best bet is that the “egg” in this case, came first…

You can believe what you want, but you ideas are not accepted by any of the significant economists who studied this issue before the GOP injected their supply side ideologues into the “debate”. They started with a theory that was, and has been, soundly rejected and tried to look for chinks in the armor of history to sell it.
.
It’s a lot like the debate on evolution, or the extinction of the dinosaurs, or the age of the Earth, or any number of other pseudo “debates”.

Is this how it’s done?
.
While the conventional wisdom is that Ronald Reagan’s speech at the Berlin Wall was the impetus for bringing the wall down, the passage of time has shown Jimmy Carter as most responsible for that milestone:
http://books.google.com/books?id=AeC4DCmfaAUC&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=Carter+Berlin+Wall&source=web&ots=3JCdt0R7AY&sig=-GzKQ8Zv1YjLBP2t01feYCXAVZw&hl=en&ei=JQeXSYzlCYmGsQPb0fSGAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result
.
“Even some of Mr. Reagan’s own senior foreign-policy officials seem to think the speech was not particularly noteworthy, except in that it provided conservatives an opportunity to overlook Carter’s huge role in not only bringing down the Berlin Wall, but in ending the Cold War…“I thought it was corny in the extreme,” Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to George H. W. Bush, told me. “It was irrelevant, that statement at that time.””
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/opinion/10mann.html

rickterp: You are so right, and I hadn’t thought of this. Voinovich, especially, could have easily explained such a generous gesture to his constituents, and even many fellow Republican senators could have understood such kindness. Just one more demonstration they’re b@stards

kidster
.
What you aren’t getting is that you can find an economist somewhere in this country to say that cows farting turned around the Great Depression that doesn’t make it so. If you don’t think the jobs created by they New Deal had a great impact on unemployment and thus SPENDING which is what we judge a recession or Depression by chiefly then you aren’t even using COMMON sense. Do you think monetary policy would have made a damn bit of difference if people didn’t have jobs? Hell no. And what you and most Rethugs never will be able to do is prove that there is a link between tax cuts and new jobs. A person running a business doesn’t have to offer new jobs just because they don’t have to pay as much in taxes. You know why most business owners hire new employees? Because they have a higher demand. Where does demand come from? The consumer. Can the consumer drive demand if they don’t have a job? Hell no. It doesn’t take an economist to see that.
.
But here is my final answer, SCOREBOARD!
.
For all of yours and Mankiws theories that the New Deal didn’t work, the stimulus package has passed. All of your points are moot now. So you can either get on board and hope all of your theories are wrong or keep concern trolling and hoping they don’t work thus proving your theories and simultaneously destroying the country.
.
Your choice.

PNNTO:
.
You should consult with hulagate on that one…
.
lidster:
.
Germany was isolated economically during that time because of rearming and violations of the Treaty of Versailles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles
.
In addition, they too suffered a depression, as the effects were worldwide. See previous posts.

SG, I don’t disagree. But I think he’s just giving them enough rope. They are now invested in his failure, if he doesn’t fail, they will be swinging from a tree. And not the way Mikey likes it.

sg. What you said.

But isn’t it plausible that much of that job-growth was instead a corollary of an increase in the money supply?
.
lidster:
.
It would be more plausible if there weren’t a massive government jobs creation program implemented at that time.
.
Also, what increase in money supply during the period 1933-37 do you mean?

2cute
.
I agree that in the end its going to hurt the Rethugs more than help them but in the short term they HAVE landed a few blows. And somehow I don’t think they would have felt as emboldened if they had seen President Obama crush Lieberman like a bug. All they respect is an iron fist and there is a way to be seen as “bipartisan” and strong at the same time. Sending a signal to do whatever it took to keep LIEberman was the exact opposite of that.

I think that the GOP is going to marginalize themselves out of existance. My big worry is that the ineffective Benanke-Paulson handout is going to become a monkey wrench in the wheels of economic recovery.
.
That handout was and will be an inflation magnet of gargantuan proportions…

You know, sg, one thing I do have to say is that when the bottom line was written, Obama got all 58 Senate Dems and all but 7 of the House Dems to go along with it.
.
That’s unity we haven’t seen for a while, and I have to take my hat off to Obama for being able to pull that one off!

53_3 the money supply came from a shift in policy of the federal reserve…. probably your most ill-conceived post yet.

Friedman’s book on the monetary history came out in 1963 so it is hardly recent – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Monetary_History_of_the_United_States
If you read the entry you’ll see that Bernanke, a Depression expert, is quoted as saying the book changed the debate.

I am not arguing for Victorian style, laissez-faire economics I simply argued that the stimulus will likely not work. I didn’t use GOP talking points to discuss the further encroachment of gov’t into our lives or argue that it is against the Jeffersonian ideal. I merely said that I did not believe that it’d work on scientific grounds relating to crowding out etc.

At least SG read my links and found that I had made a mistake in one of my references. You, 53_3, clearly have absolutely zero idea what you’re talking about.

53_3
.
Democrats pretty much had to vote with this popular president. The few in the house that didn’t come from districts that banked on hiring a Republican with a D behind their name. That the Democrats understand the politics of this a little bit better than the Rethugs is good but nothing to really rejoice about. The only ones at risk of not voting for the bill were blue dogs and they were placated. What was a progressive gonna say? “We aren’t voting for it because its not big enough”? Fat Chance. They have to get reelected too you know.

If you didn’t figure it out by now, I’m not going to bother.
.
We’ll let history handle this one, and like was so ably pointed out, the deal is done.
.
My bet is on the bailout.

Crowding out isn’t going to have an effect on this stimulus package until 10 years from now and thats only IF we keep everything the same including our spending levels from now until then. I would remind you that we potentially could have 2 different Presidents by that time other than the man in office right now. So if you are really worried about crowding out that means you believe that President Obama and every Dem will be reelected for a third term and they won’t look at any data on the economy and just keep doing everything the exact same way. Not exactly a strong argument I must say.

SG
.
Isn’t it nice to have a leader with some foresight though? He took a couple of glancing blows to land a major body shot that they won’t even feel for several rounds. “Win the news cycle” politicians are not ready for this.
.
53_3
.
Don’t get trolled.

By the way, this speech by Pelosi yesterday PWNING Herbert Hoover and all of those promoting doing nothing right now was EXCELLENT. Write a song my ass.
.

sg, I entirely agree each of us can give a list of economists who will back up our various arguments. Our lists would probably have the same amount of Nobel prizes etc… I do not believe tax cuts are a terrific way to kickstart an economy, their effects are short-term (remember tax cuts are a component of FISCAL policy) but I do believe that the multiplier of a tax cut is greater than that of gov’t spending….

The poor point you made however was with regards monetary policy being ineffective if people don’t have jobs. Monetary policy would enable firms to borrow more and thus raise more capital etc etc. Again, you are free to disagree and that’s obviously a fait accompli.

Where you are most wrong though is in your assertion that the argument is moot. What if, 12 months from now the economy is still in the tank and the Dems want another stimulus package as some have suggested.

There is no reason why I would not want the economy to recover. I would like to be wrong because I would like not to have to live in a depressed economy for four years. However, I don’t believe I am wrong and I believe there is sufficient evidence to suggest that I’m correct.

53_3 I could well be wrong, I am not going to read the wiki article on Versailles but I seem to remember that those reparations demanded were forgiven in the early 30s and thus not applicable once the Nazis came to power.

Stuart, here is a bunch of graphs showing a huge contraction in the money supply in the years 29-33 and then it expanding again – http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/depmon.htm

sg, I’ll never understand how you can continue to believe that Hoover was a “do-nothing” president. He signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff act as well as introducing the largest tax increase in US history.

Also, do not forget…..

“Indeed, while Hoover fulminated against “socalled new deals,” it was Roosevelt who accused the President of “reckless and extravagant” spending, and of thinking “that we ought to center control of everything in Washington as rapidly as possible.” Roosevelt’s running mate, Congressman John Nance Garner of Texas, 63, even claimed that Hoover was “leading the country down the path of socialism.” Eleanor Roosevelt best summed up her husband’s uncertain command of the future when she wrote at the time of his Inauguration: “One has a tremendous feeling of going it blindly, because we’re in a tremendous stream, and none of us knows where we’re going to land.”

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954983-4,00.html

Just to clarify because I’ll undoubtedly be accused of being a Hoover apologist…. I believe Hoover was an unmitigated disaster. However, history remembers him completely incorrectly. He was not, despite what you may think, Nero fiddling on the roof while Rome burned.

Thanks ivb3016
“ivb3016 Says:
Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 10:00 am
Guess Joe Scarborough was too centrist last week on NPR’s Weekend Edition, this week they had Dorothy Rabinowitz who gave a horrible screed on her version of bipartisanship with no kind word for Mr. Obama. It was shocking.”

So glad you said that! I too thought who is this awful woman? What is she talking about? But alas, what should we expect from the WSJ?
What is up with NPR?

kidster
.
Would you care to try to refute this information from Zandi, McCain’s old economic advisor?
.
http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/assissing-the-impact-of-the-fiscal-stimulus.pdf
.

Table 1: Fiscal Economic Bang for the Buck
One year $ change in real GDP for a given $ reduction in federal tax revenue or increase
in spending
.
Tax Cuts
.
Non-refundable lump-sum tax rebate 1.02
Refundable lump-sum tax rebate 1.26
Temporary tax cuts
payroll tax holiday 1.29
Across the board tax cut 1.03
Accelerated depreciation 0.27
Permanent tax cuts
Extend alternative minimum tax patch 0.48
Make Bush income tax cuts permanent 0.29
Make dividend and capital gains tax cuts permanent 0.37
Cut in corporate tax rate 0.30
.
.
Spending Increases
.
Extending UI benefits 1.64
Temporary increase in food stamps 1.73
General aid to state governments 1.36
Increased infrastructure spending 1.59
.
.
Items in bold were included in the package, items italicized is what you and ever Rethug wanted included.
Again, SCOREBOARD!

Oh and kidster
.
A business won’t borrow money to make up for a lack of demand unless they are in dire straights. And they won’t hire new people based on money they borrow to cover shortfalls from a lack of demand. And in the end if they still don’t have demand they will default on those loans anyway. Which goes back to my point that DEMAND from the consumer drives job creation. No demand means no new jobs and probably the loss of current jobs. But there can be no new demand if the people who lost their jobs can’t find a new one thus preventing them from making money, thus preventing them from SPENDING money. Imagine the conundrum. You must be dizzy the way your brain is going around in circles.

2cute:
.
I can’t take the time to put out every fire this guy lights. I think my several arguments, particularly those he stayed away from, still stand in contradiction to his theories.
.
As for the FR injection of money, you can’t pay for infrastructure if you don’t have enough money in circulation to pay for it.
.
Let’s do a thought experiment for lidster:
.
without the following infrastructure developed by the new deal, how would WWII, or any other effort in later years, been successful? What would the US’s rural communities look like now? Would our rural communities be more like Bangladesh’s or more like Britains?
.
Highway System
Electrical Grid
Agricultural Programs
Telephone System
Health System
.
The answer to that question is the answer to lidster’s objections…

On quick not on Federal Reserve:
.
Back then, we were on the gold standard.
.
Now, we’re on the air standard…

SG, you do recognise the silliness of what you just posted, don’t you? Obviously making tax cuts that are already in existence permanent is not going to be stimulatory.

Also, if it were me I would be favouring a permanent cut in the payroll tax and your numbers seem to suggest that’d be a pretty good idea.

I’m not ideologically opposed to some infrastructure programs it is just the size of the programs that I think is disastrous; the bill could have been at least halved.

Anyway, here is an article by the Harvard prof, Barro on the likelihood that the multiplier is much below the 1.5 that Obama’s team believes to be the case – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258618204604599.html

By the way, just on a personal note, as far as how the middle class vs. the upper crust would handle the rebates?
.
I just got my refund, and duly stimulated the economy by getting long-postponed maintainance done on my car.
.
That was about 1/5 of the money I recieved.

I am not a fan of Politico but Ben Smith is a decent writer there and he covered Obama during the election so I will tolerate him. His new column has got to have Joke Line, Scherer and the rest sh*tting their pants at their growing lack of influence. Nobody cares what they think anymore. And they continue to decline into irrelevance.
.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18861.html

Um, lidster, didn’t anyone point out to you that the “tax cuts that are already in existance” didn’t avert the current, uh, um, sitch?
.
They certainly didn’t do much when they came into existance, either…

I know 53_3, I was just going to lunch and wanted something interesting to read when I got back.
.
Although I will give it to the Kidster, he’s got more to say of substance than hula/qh/m4a/rusty and whatever other name that guy goes by. Not much of a compliment though.

Here’s a good assessment of the tax policies of the stimulus package:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/conference_stimulus.cfm

kidster
.
First those aren’t President Obama’s numbers. Those are ZANDI’S numbers which he released BEFORE President Obama’s stimulus plan was released. Second
.

Robert J. Barro is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

.

The Hoover Institution is influential in the American conservative and libertarian movements, and the Institution has long been a place of scholarship for high profile conservatives with government experience.

.
Why does that matter? Well perhaps it might explain this quote from the article.
.

Finally, the U.S. economy was already growing rapidly after 1933 (aside from the 1938 recession), and it is probably unfair to ascribe all of the rapid GDP growth from 1941 to 1945 to the added military outlays. In any event, when I attempted to estimate directly the multiplier associated with peacetime government purchases, I got a number insignificantly different from zero.

.
How am I supposed to take him seriously after that?
.
And last but not least that bunch of tripe was in the friggin Wing Nut Journal run by Rupert Murdock. Seriously dude, try harder next time.

2cute:
.
I kinda have a dead-fish attitude toward the likes of lidster.
.
He thinks forking over yet more money to the rich* is going to help, when, by his own admission, we have already shoveled them ninety times as much money as the entire TANF budget for the United States and we still have nothing to show for it except for the potential for a huge inflation spike down the road.
.
Bernanke and the GOP gave themselves so much money that it makes a few hundred billion dollars in tax cuts look like a drop in the bucket, and yet lidster wants more, and thinks that fiscal restraint on an amount 1/9 the size of the Bernanke handout will insulate us from the negative effects of overspending.
.
Oh, well, he is certainly credible…

Using the standard measure, accepted by those in the profession, Barro ranks as the 3rd best economist based on his writings. http://ideas.repec.org/top/top.person.all.html

If you don’t want to take him seriously that’s entirely up to you.

Hit it on the nailhead, sg.
.
Sh!t! The libertarians don’t even believe in taxation of any type.
.
And lidster says he isn’t a laissez faire kind of guy…

towandavt, Shortly before 10:00 I went to the web page and there were six comments about that segment, all blistering. I was going to suggest you read them and just went back to see how many there are now. There are none. I wrote to the ombudsman asking if we were now subject to censorship as well.

kidster
.
I see you take economics like fantasy football. He wasn’t ranked by what the hell he wrote in the Wing Nut Journal but if you are that damn dumb that a person can piss in your face and convince you its raining ie denying the Great Depression and saying there was just a recession in 1938 then have at it hoss. Imma be over here in the real world were a person’s title doesn’t blind me to when they are straight up bullsh*tting.
.
SCOREBOARD

Well, lidster, it’s like this:
.
You gots 23,000,000 listeners on FOX. That makes them one of top listenerships in the US.
.
Harmonics? Ok. He’s popular, but when you got 23,000,000 nutballs that adhere to his schtick, it becomes pretty popular.
.
But what it doesn’t do is make him, or them, “fair and balanced”…

Or, for that matter, integillent…

“Barro ranks as the 3rd best economist…”
lidster:
.
That is not what that analysis said! He is the third most cited economist!
.
A point in fact:
Walter Alverez’s 1980 paper was cited less often at times during the ’80s debate of the extinction of the dinosaurs than Charles Officer was.
.
But Officer, as it turned out, was wrong, and more than once…

Hey kidster, since you like fantasy football economics check out this article by the guy two slots up from Barrow. You know, the #1 guy based on the link YOU provided.
.
Here is the link
.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a78e69a4-e30d-11dd-a5cf-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
.
To give you a hint of whats there here is the title.
.
Do not squander America’s stimulus on tax cuts
.
I do this for fun
.
SCOREBOARD!

53_3, I have no idea why you’ve decided to start ranting about me being some fox listener (I’m not) or some anarcho-capitalist who doesn’t believe in taxation (I’m not), but, do as you please….

Sg, I think you misread what Barro wrote. He is not denying the Great Depression, he is arguing that it was severe from 29-33, growth picked up in 33 through 38 before a recession occurred.

Of course I realise he is not ranked based on WSJ articles and that’s a spurious, puerile charge. I referenced the link to demonstrate that he’s a serious, well respected economist.

Again, you don’t agree with him, that’s fine. I don’t agree with Stiglitz who is 1 on the list or Krugman who’s 14, but do I deny their legitimate economists? No.

We need two things to happen:

1. Somebody please throw in the towel for the kid, it’s getting ugly.
.
2. a new topic, hopefully one less than 75 years old.

Huh, well I guess if you look at the time we both posted I can only be charged with being intellectually honest and you appear rather foolish.

kidster. It was fun kicking you around for awhile but now I have to go. But you keep up the good fight, at least you did try to justify your wrong headed opinion.
.
Have a good one

No worries, I’ll just head over to the Darwin forums and inform them they’re naive now.

lidster,
I didn’t say you were a fox listener. Didn’t you read what I wrote?
.
Did you read my second more detailed explanation of the issue I raised, when I discussed the fact that Officer, who was on the wrong side of the dinosaur extinction debate, and Alverez, who was right?
.
You need to really read these posts through.
.
When you cozy up to economists who cozy up to those who don’t even believe in the existance of a taxing authority, expect criticism!

“No worries, I’ll just head over to the Darwin forums and inform them they’re naive now.”
.
Now that’s the spirit!
.
Go git ‘em!

…still trying to get lidster’s link to the money supply graphs to load…

But, why don’t we try more tax cuts.
.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/business/15global.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1234641691-5hJuoyJbsOfQNUwcMJH+iQ

I love checkin in here and seeing what the wacky Obama worshipping libtards are up to. Lidster is lighting you guys up with facts and making you look like fools…so you start name calling..that’s par for the course..somebody disagrees with you..just call him a name.

Lidster is owning you guys.

SCOREBOARD!!

Paul Lukasiak: please correct me if I’m mis-stating your position.
_
although I know I’m late in responding, you’ve got it exactly right, Stuart.
_
The point here is that there is overwhelming public demand that something be done, and the nation has just elected a new president and increased Democratic representation in congress. The GOP could not have withstood the extreme public pressure and anger that would have resulted if they held up the bill — its really that simple. It would have been politically disasterous for the GOP to hold up a bill that Obama wanted, and a majority were ready to pass.

He is? I did? Wha?
.
Is ilikechips reading the same blog, or is he just illiterate?
.
Facts? Owning us?
.
Ok, chips. Have it your way.
.
BTW, who won the last election?

Hey ilikechips! Way to come in and call everybody names and then condemn us for…wait for it…calling people names!
.
Rethug 101

My apologies if this comment has already been made, but…
.
The premise of Joe’s post is that Lieberman *helped* bring 60 votes together in the Senate because he was part of the *Dem* caucus.
.
This implies that had Lieberman defected to the GOP earlier this year, he would not have voted for the bill? Is that what we’re saying?
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Could not the argument also be made that Lieberman may have voted for the bill as a GOPer because he was trying to get back in the Dems goog graces?
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Frankly, I wouldn’t count on the Lieberman-ID vote in the Dem column on any vote.

“Frankly, I wouldn’t count on the Lieberman-ID vote in the Dem column on any vote.”
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Only if the vote benefited Israel. Other than that, well, you have a point.

stuart, the link to the graphs works fine – http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/depmon.htm

[...] sayeth the so-insightful Joe Klein for Time’s Swampland blog, who addeth: “Those who wonder about the President’s [...]

I still view ‘bittergate’ and the Natalie Maines backlash as defining moments in American culture whan proud ignorance became rallying cries to shout down anything that reeked of intelligence or caution.

Deliberate and proud ignorance…

lidster:
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It must be one hell of a graph, because when I open the link, the page sits perpetually transferring data from sjsu.edu.
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I’ll let it go even longer this time…

…Still trying to load…

“The GOP wants to have it both ways — a bill that slashed spending on social programs that would allieviate the impact of the recession on those most effective, and included counter-productive tax cuts — that they could still vote against. And thanx to Obama’s obsession with his image, they were able to achieve that.”
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Yes and we know that in politics, image is nothing. Seriously, Obama is obviously thinking two moves beyond you, me and the Republicans. Obama “reached-out” to Republicans exactly so they could bite him and Villagers like Joe Klein could give him permission to do his thing without them. Do you know what the Village does to politicians they’ve deemed “partisan” (and don’t ask me why it’s never the real partisans) or worse, “liberal”?
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You may think that the legislation passed was somehow fatally flawed by the compromise but it’s actually pretty damned close to what Obama wanted (including the campaign promise of tax cuts to 95%). And, in the bargain, he’s shown Republicans to be the totally ridiculous, partisan traitors that many of us have always known they were and he’s earned important political capital with the “centrists” in the Village who will be writing the narratives and frames for Obama going forward (here’s the current one: “Obama reached out to Republicans in bi-partisan fashion and was spurned and obstructed by them in his efforts to save US and world economies in crisis”). Not bad for 25 days work.

I missed the whole slugfest just because I took my wife out for dinner. For some truly important economic news…I paid.

@ shepherdwong: I agree that Obama is thinking several moves ahead and planning long term. What are people going to remember in a year? What’s going to be in the campaign ads in 16 months? Specter is the only republican up for re-election in 2010 that voted for the stimulus package. The ONLY one. He’s going to have a primary fight from within his own party but Pennsylvania is a reliably blue state. It’s also getting a ton of money because Specter bucked his own party to vote for his constituents. If the RNC backs Specter’s opponent, how loyal is Arlen is going to be? Lieberman lost the democratic primary, ran as an independent and won with a significant number of republican and independent votes. Obama is smarter than most of us and a much better politician than all of the republicans in congress. Lieberman trashed Obama and yet there he was voting for the bill, doing what Obama wanted. We can guess at his long term plans and how he intends to accomplish them, but my gut feeling is that his plans are going to be obvious only in retrospection. There were many times during the democratic primary and general election when I wondered “why he didn’t do this?” or “why didn’t he do that?”. Looking back now, it’s hard to argue with the results.

“Liberal Legal Scold” today: “Shrillness” – the first cousin of “Unseriousness” – is the conceptual instrument used to deter and (when that fails) demonize those who view the political and media establishment as corrupt at its core. It’s a way of demanding that everyone just calm down, avoid impetuous and inflammatory language, and stop acting as though there’s anything seriously wrong with our political and media elites.

…it’s actually pretty damned close to what Obama wanted…
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Umm…who cares what Obama wants?
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The only question that matters is whether or not it is the best plan for the country, the rest is inside baseball, what’s “probable in today’s political world”, “Serious”, etc.
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What Obama wants and gets or doesn’t get is what the political class in the Beltway cares about. What we should care about is whether we are getting what we want…or not.

Still trying to open that graph…

“Obama is smarter than most of us and a much better politician than all of the republicans in congress.”
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The latter (at least) being pretty low bar and why liberals are so disgusted with Democrats for failing so frequently to clear it.
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—-
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Umm…who cares what Obama wants?”
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Ummm…the citizens who chose him to decide which policies to adopt and sell to the public?

Here’s the $787 billion question: do you really think that Barack Obama believed he would receive serious Republican support for a big government solution by using bi-partisan rhetoric and reaching out and compromising with them up front?
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If you do, then Obama is more politically naïve than liberal bloggers. If not, then it was all for show. Try the veal.

…the citizens who chose him to decide which policies to adopt and sell to the public…
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That’s funny!
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I’m sure there are a lot of people like me who didn’t vote for Obama so that he could sell them whatever he decided was best for them…although I’m sure there are many others who fit your description, who need an authoritarian, daddy-figure leader to make them feel good about the policies the technocrats enforce on them for their own good.
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Most of those kind of people have been voting Republican until relatively recently, I might add.

…that didn’t come out right, shepherdwong.
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By “fit your description”, I didn’t mean to refer to you personally, I meant that fit your description of “the citizens who chose him to decide which policies to adopt and sell to the public”
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Just to be clear, lots and lots of us didn’t elect another “The Decider” to get on Teevee and spew marketed phrases to an ignorant public. We elected a temporary public employee to enact our agenda, the agenda he committed to during his campaign, the one we decided upon when we cast our votes for him.

I’m sure there are a lot of people like me who didn’t vote for Obama so that he could sell them whatever he decided was best for them…
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That’s the job description dude, if you can’t hack it you need to find another hobby whenever someone you don’t like has the job.
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…although I’m sure there are many others who fit your description, who need an authoritarian, daddy-figure leader to make them feel good about the policies the technocrats enforce on them for their own good.
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Ha! I can’t decide which is more idiotic, the description of me or the one of Obama. Here, learn something: Liberals aren’t often authoritarian followers.

Honestly, if you can reasonably show that the economic policy Obama’s is fundamentally flawed in some measurable way, I’ve got no bone to pick with you. My bet is you’ve got nothing but an educated guess (or someone else’s). I suggest you don’t take that bet unless you’re actually smarter and more prescient than everyone else who’s involved with attacking the problem. I think you’ve made up your mind about something you can’t possibly know.

Joe Klein is suffering; he is a very ill man. The hot hate as revealed by the venomous drivel he heaves out of his sickly innards at every opportunity at Republican Supporters is eating up his insides. I suggest you take it easy on the Obama Kool-Aid Joe. We need you to report on Election 2012 and I don’t want you choking to death before the time in the hate you feel whenever you think of President Bush and the last eight years.

“Lieberman played a crucial role in talking several Republicans off the ledge”
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The number of Republicans who voted for the bill < several
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But wait! It gets better:
- Arlen Specter (R-Penn) had to vote for it if he wants to win his next general election.
- Susan Collins (R-Maine) wrote the compromise bill so she was voting for it.
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So, assuming you don’t give credit to her fellow senator from Maine, the only one left is Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). If Joe Lieberman had actually gotten several Republicans to vote for the bill, then Sherrod Brown wouldn’t have to run back from his mother’s funeral.
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Joe Lieberman did not deliver several Republican votes. Joe Klein lied.

He carries water for the pukes for 8 years, campaigns for them, calls liberals traitors, but all he has to do is vote once with the Democrats and the centrist cult hero Lieberman is back in the fold.

Kind of makes one want to puke.

Here’s the $787 billion question: do you really think that Barack Obama believed he would receive serious Republican support for a big government solution by using bi-partisan rhetoric and reaching out and compromising with them up front?
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If you do, then Obama is more politically naïve than liberal bloggers. If not, then it was all for show. Try the veal.
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Obama thought that the tsunami of public anxiety about the economy, the election results, and massive public antipathy toward the GOP and anything having to do with Bushonomics would result in bipartisan support for an economic recovery package — and he’d get credit for “changing the way things work in Washington” if he pre-emptively gave away the store with a tax cut.
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He was outsmarted by the GOP, who understood what he was trying to do, and decided to deny Obama the political benefit he sought by getting a “stimulus” passed.
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A stimulus package was inevitable — and all the sturm and drang of the last few weeks were about politics, not the economy. Obama decided to politicize the recovery package, and the GOP decided to beat Obama at his own game.

I’m sure there are a lot of people like me who didn’t vote for Obama so that he could sell them whatever he decided was best for them…
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stuart, I don’t understand. Do you mean “sell” or “implement”? You know I am a critic of unconstitutional executive power and don’t believe that Obama is “the Decider,” but isn’t selling part of his job?

Where do I send my contribution to help fund a primary against Collins, Snowe, and Specter. Talk about people who would rather be “loved” than respected.

“Obama thought that the tsunami of public anxiety about the economy, the election results, and massive public antipathy toward the GOP and anything having to do with Bushonomics would result in bipartisan support for an economic recovery package — and he’d get credit for “changing the way things work in Washington” if he pre-emptively gave away the store with a tax cut.
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“He was outsmarted by the GOP, who understood what he was trying to do, and decided to deny Obama the political benefit he sought by getting a “stimulus” passed.”
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Well, you’re entitled to your beliefs. Looks to me (as well as others) that Obama has certainly “changing the way things work in Washington” by being a Democrat who beat the sh*t out of the Republicans and making the media look like the out-of-touch stenographers they are (BTW he did get a stimulus passed). That’s change I can believe in.

[...] a little lesson in grace, and how much withholding punishment from someone who deserves it can [...]

[...] Joe Lieberman Stimulus Hero That’s right. It seems Lieberman played a crucial role in talking several Republicans off the ledge, thereby [...] [...]

[...] a little lesson in grace, and how much withholding punishment from someone who deserves it can [...]