Matt Yglesias

42 Responses to “Actual CBO Report”

1. Stuck Says:
   January 26th, 2009 at 11:30 pm

   Why hasn’t Obama fixed the economy yet? In two days, It’ll be a whole dern week he’s been Preznit. In the mean time, Citigroup is putting our tax money toward some needed stimulative spending on a new Jet. All we now is for Paris Hilton to get her new tax cut and we’ll be good to go.

2. slag Says:
   January 26th, 2009 at 11:32 pm

   Would it have been so hard for conservative to wait until tonight when we have an actual CBO analysis of the stimulus plan to work with?

   Because if there’s anything we’ve learned about conservatives over the last eight years, it’s that they are fastidious fact-seekers.

3. alphie Says:
   January 26th, 2009 at 11:55 pm

   Why would 100% be better?

   Don’t we want a sustained recovery?

   Or at least one that lasts past the next election?

4. endless Ike Says:
   January 27th, 2009 at 12:16 am

   The answer to our nation’s fiscal irresponsibility is even more fiscal irresponsibility.

   The sooner the better!

5. mitt Says:
   January 27th, 2009 at 12:42 am

   “CBO estimates that the bill would increase outlays by $92 billion during the remaining several months of fiscal year 2009, by $225 billion in fiscal year 2010 (which begins on October 1), by $159 billion in 2011, and by a total of $604 billion over the 2009-2019 period.”

   Am I missing something here? Is 82+225 two thirds of 604?

6. weichi Says:
   January 27th, 2009 at 12:47 am

   mitt,

   Matt inluded the the tax cuts – see paragraph 5. I get 64% not 67%, but close enough.

7. JimboSlice Says:
   January 27th, 2009 at 12:55 am

   I would just like to point out that over the last two months the head of the CBO has been Robert A. Sunshine, what a fitting name considering he was head of the CBO during the worst 2 months for the economy since WWII.

8. Stuck Says:
   January 27th, 2009 at 1:05 am

   the head of the CBO has been Robert A. Sunshine, what a fitting name considering he was head of the CBO during the worst 2 months for the economy since WWII.

   He’d be great if Irony could grease the wheels of commerce.

9. Thomas Says:
   January 27th, 2009 at 1:17 am

   Matt keeps repeating what he apparently thinks is a clever argument, which is that if Congress had passed a stimulus plan back in September things would now be better. This despite the fact that the proposed stimulus then was much smaller but would still have faced delays similar to the current proposal, and despite the fact that Matt admits there’s uncertainty about whether any stimulus will work. But, yes, if one assumes it will work, there’s a pretty good argument for doing it. Also, if we assume that Matt’s right about everything, then everything Matt wants to do is probably right. Why does Matt find something so transparently unpersuasive to be clever? Because he never talks to anyone who disagrees?

   Despite Matt’s insistence that this is the first analysis, CBO did release a preliminary estimate. It’s even mentioned on the CBO blog.

10. ColoZ Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 1:58 am

    Matt, why aren’t you beating the drums about the lack of mass transit funding in the stimulus bill? Do you know something the rest of us don’t?

11. Kolohe Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 2:00 am

    And even truer that if we had passed a stimulus plan back last September rather than experiencing months of delay thanks to conservative intransigence this problem wouldn’t be so severe.

    Strong measures before you’re fully cognizant of the scope of the problem only works in House episodes (and then only in the last 5 minutes).

    And anyways, besides the fact that the Bush administration would have been administering the first part of it (remember those guys?), besides the fact that a $168 billion stimulus had been passed in in Feb, the particular issue in Sept was the economy (specifically the financial markets) were having the equivalent of cardiac arrest. You zap with the paddles at that point, wait for things to stabilize a bit, then start the prescribed drug, diet and exercise regimen. But only *after* stabilized. Otherwise at best you’re doing no good, at worst you’re doing harm.

12. El Cid Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 8:26 am

    Put me down on the list of people glad that the keys to the ’stimulus’ package weren’t handed to Bush Jr. before he left. Yes, in fantasy land the stimulus would have begun months ago, but in the real world it was just as much a risk that he would flush it down the toilet or buy Halliburton stocks with it.

13. Njorl Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 9:49 am

    ColoZ,

    Here is a selection of Matt on bongos, congas and snare.

    http://preview.tinyurl.com/MYtransit

14. joe from Lowell Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 11:28 am

    Two-thirds is less than 75%, right?

    Yes, eight percentage points less.

    When did you start measuring the world by Barack Obama’s opening bids, Al?

    Do you have one of those naked Obama on a unicorn paintings?

15. Kolohe Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 11:52 am

    It is true that in September the financial crisis really took off, but it is also true the economy was already in a deflationary recession, and indeed had been all year.

    It was not at all obvious that we were in an deflationary spiral until the effective funds became decoupled from the target rate, and that was not until late October when the spread became greater than 75 basis points – and stayed there until the fed just went ahead and dropped the target to zero, which was the end of possible action on the monetary policy front.

    For most the year total inflation was way up, due to energy and commodity prices, and right before the peak, this had started to spill over into the core inflation numbers. The commodities basket started to retreat in price when it became apparent to the players that a bubble was occuring, but only started sliding to multi-year lows (and quashing inflation) during the fourth quarter.

    The economy falling deeper into a general recession and the broad deflation of assets was making lending all that more risky. So launching a fiscal stimulus as soon as possible would have been a good idea to help address the credit crisis.

    But at the time, (i.e. Sept) it was nearly exclusively housing prices, the assets and derivatives associated with them that were deflating/illiquid, and the direct employment in those industries. The contagion had not spread yet. I’m not saying that ‘the fundementals were strong’, but it was not clear how everything would be coupled together. Plus the stock market laying an egg that month was mostly due to the liquifying assets to cover losses in the housing & financial sectors (and some commodity wrong way bets). Only after this did it become a general flight to quality which depreciated all assets, chilled the capital as well as credit markets, tanked consumer confidence, and caused a general increase in unemployment.

    Bottom line, rushing a stimulus in September (but not say, November) would have been an empty gesture. (and of course, in both cases, run by the Bush administration) But also, and not mentioned in my previous post, trying to do so right at the peak of the longest election season in history would have not been politically feasible either. And as a general rule, I don’t think it’s wise for Congress to get in the habit of spending a lot of money a month or two before their up for re-election.

16. Kolohe Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 11:54 am

    Link with table doesn’t work, here’s the site for Eff funds rate historical data: http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/omo/dmm/historical/fedfunds/index.cfm

17. Thomas Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 11:56 am

    DTM, why are you still going on about a year-long deflationary recession? Are we supposed to have forgotten about the inflation we all experienced for the first 9 months of 2008? Did you sleep through those? Were you high the whole time?

18. Thomas Says:
    January 28th, 2009 at 9:05 am

    Why can´t reports like this have tables that arte downloadable to excel so we can do our own analysis of the numbers? Shouldn´this be included in “transparancy?”

19. ThomasH Says:
    January 28th, 2009 at 9:10 am

    Comment 27 was by me ThomasH, not “Thomas” of earlier comments.

20. Mike Says:
    February 6th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

    Did anyone else here Obama say if we don’t pass his stimulus bill immediately (even though a good chunk of the spending doesn’t hit until 2010 and later) we would enter an “irreversible” recession? Thank goodness voters picked “hope over fear” in 2008!

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