Krugman: Centrists Eliminated 600,000 Worth of Jobs From Stimulus Package
On her Twitter feed, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill defended the changes to the stimulus package as good on the merits and not merely politically necessary:
Proud we cut over 100 billion out of recov bill. Many Ds don’t like it, but needed to be done. The silly stuff Rs keep talking about is OUT.
The reduction in silliness is, I suppose, welcome. But that’s not much of an actual economic analysis. Most of the time, the government is spending money in order to accomplish something specific like build an aircraft carrier or give food to a poor family or maintain a national park or run a prison. If you can build that carrier cheaper, you’re saving the taxpayers money. And that money is thereby freed up for private consumption or investment, and the economy as a whole will thank you. But when you’ve got a substantial output gap and conventional monetary policy can’t pick up the slack, so you decide to try fiscal expansion, then you’re looking at a different situation. Safeguarding taxpayer dollars can’t be the priority when your policy objective is to spend money in order to encourage idle resources to be put to use. In the present circumstances, spending less money just means more unemployment.
How much more? Paul Krugman tries for an estimate:
Now the centrists have shaved off $86 billion in spending — much of it among the most effective and most needed parts of the plan. In particular, aid to state governments, which are in desperate straits, is both fast — because it prevents spending cuts rather than having to start up new projects — and effective, because it would in fact be spent; plus state and local governments are cutting back on essentials, so the social value of this spending would be high. But in the name of mighty centrism, $40 billion of that aid has been cut out.
My first cut says that the changes to the Senate bill will ensure that we have at least 600,000 fewer Americans employed over the next two years.
I’m sure Senator McCaskill’s pride will be a great confort to those hundreds of thousands of additional unemployed people and to their children, spouses, friends, parents and other loved ones.
101 Responses to “Krugman: Centrists Eliminated 600,000 Worth of Jobs From Stimulus Package”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
February 7th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
“I’m sure Senator McCaskill’s pride will be a great confort to those hundreds of thousands of additional unemployed people…”
Wait — you’re really going for a “that’s small comfort” line for a group of people who not only not yet exist but are only estimated to exist by a single* economist?
*I’m assuming being a Nobel Prize winner still makes Krugman a single economist, and still fallible, so try not to use that line.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
That’s six hundred thousand new potential entrepreneurs, who are now free to strike out on their own and grow the economy.
(Hey, I heard a rumor that AEI is hiring, and thought I should start building a resumé…)
February 7th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
How about they spend the eighty billion dollars funding a bunch of Republican wet dreams? Counselors to turn gay people straight? Free bibles for every child under 18, every year on his or her birthday?
You’d be in favor of this, right? It’d be stimulative, so who cares if it’s silly, right?
February 7th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Just to clarify, I’m not saying at all that Krugman’s analysis is off. But it is an analysis of future events.
I’m not saying McCaskill is right, though she does believe the adjustments in the bill will make her constituents better off (by ensuring the bill’s passage, freeing up government revenue and capital for future projects, etc.). To repeat, I’M NOT SAYING SHE IS RIGHT, only that her analysis is different.
To go from a democratic difference of opinion to “I’m sure your pride is great comfort to the misery you know you are creating” seems… how to put it?
February 7th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Why did MY not include the last parafraph, the punchline of the post?
…PK
OK, the stimulus is spread out over two years(+). So for at least a year, no matter how bad the numbers get, and according to PK they are likely to get very very bad, we are going to be told:”We must wait for the stimulus to work.” Then we have a midterm year.
Perhaps Obama is going Leninist on us? Because this puppy is going down, as the dude said. Welcome to the Greater Depression. Thanks, Barry.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
My first cut says that the changes to the Senate bill will ensure that we have at least 600,000 fewer Americans employed over the next two years.
Yeah, we should have made it $2 trillion and used all the extra money to create make-work jobs for people digging holes and filling them in again. Full employment guaranteed!
February 7th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
…at a savings of $143,000 per job.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
The last line of McCaskill’s twitter post make it seem like she believes it is in part political. The Dems had to cut a chunk of the bill out in order to undercut the Republican “silly things” argument. McCaskill is now using Twitter to do the undercutting.
Maybe that’s reading between the lines, but she’s smart enough to know this is a public medium she’s using
February 7th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
“But when you’ve got a substantial output gap and conventional monetary policy can’t pick up the slack, so you decide to try fiscal expansion….”
The massive overcapacity in the world’s economy is the result of a debt financed consumption orgy. The only way to utilize that capacity now is to embark on another debt financed debt orgy so as to boost consumption beyond what can be supported out of real incomes. Of course then we’ll get to go through this all over again.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Beautiful line.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Right.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Deep down, I keep thinking “somehow, we’ll make it out of this mess.” There have been many periods in American history when the economic system was tested or nearly disintegrated. However, this catastrophe seems to be more severe than all the others, including the Great Depression.
Back then, the country was in the midst of colossal technological advancement, from electricity to cars to airplanes. What do we have now, dumbass iPods or bullshit smart phones?
So where are we going with this bullshit? How can we allow the current structure to exist, post meltdown?
The corruption inside the government, interlinked with big business/foreign financiers, is so pervasive and blatant, I seriously doubt that things can ever be the same. These motherf*^kers not only killed capitalism, they stifled America’s brand of business, worldwide. Who in their right mind will listen to our advice anymore? How can we tell the next up and coming nation to use our mold?
It is broken.
So now we have President Obama. He talks a big game; but thus far, he is just giving us more of the same. Which means one thing: they (our government) have no f*#king idea how to arrest the decline. The answer to our problems cannot be buying the toxic assets from the banks, at a 200% premium no less. You have to be f@!king kidding me. We are not talking 1 trill either. The real exposure is more than 3 trillion dollars.
Some of you conspiracy theorists out there think the government is doing this on purpose, in order to grab control of everything. I tend to think they are all incompetent, viagra popping drunkards, who have overplayed their hands and are about to be called out.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Kafka:
The massive overcapacity in the world’s economy is the result of a debt financed consumption orgy.
How can the entire world experience a debt financed consumption orgy? Who are we borrowing from, the Martians?
February 7th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
how sad it is to see her out there LYING about this shit. good job, Claire, you just lost all the love you earned with your “these people are idiots!” speech. you are PROUD to have cut “silly things”, like people’s livelihoods. way to go!
February 7th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
this bill is 42% tax cuts.
this is exactly the proposal Rush Limbaugh made in his WSJ op-ed. the Dems have crafted Rush Limbaugh’s bill, for him.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Shrill.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
How can the entire world experience a debt financed consumption orgy
Very very good. One person’s debt is anothers asset, and what we have actually been experiencing is a massive neo-liberal orgy of exploitation and appropriation.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
1) Over time, INVESTMENT creates jobs –pissing money away on ill-designed consumption makes unemployment worst.
2) Given all the drama here, how many people angrily criticizing the stimulus bill — or angrily defending it — have actually READ THE GODDAMM BILL?
3) The big mistake Obama has made is that he is demanding we spend $800 Billion tax dollars, he is strongly attacking the Republicans for not going along — and yet he doesn’t seem to know what the fuck the House put in the bill.
4) He should defend the SPECIFICS of the bill –not just some economic imperative. He , in turn, should demand that the Republicans attack specific lines in the bill — and kick the living shit out of them when they do not or when their criticism is unfair.
5) Same thing goes for TARP. NOBODY has explained why we need to save the bad banks, why the taxpayers has to take it in the shorts absorbing the losses of superrich investors, why the US government can’t simply create new good banks and have the new banks support the economy by lending to real businesses with real prospects making real, valuable products.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
What a scumbag. There are no economic merits to the 99% of the cuts that were made. She makes me sick. I think people forget how opportunistic politicians. She wants to curry favor as so called no nonsense fiscal conservative – whatever that means.
Disgusting.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
And, apparently this is importance to the so called discussion: I read the stimulus bill!
February 7th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
About half of the cuts will go back in during conference with the House but the initial cuts and vote for the TVs lets crossover R’s act like they accomplished something.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
“One person’s debt is anothers asset”
Unless the debtor can’t pay it back, at which point the lender has to eat the cost. Which isn’t so bad when I paid the bar tab last night for a broke friend, but is bad when thousands of homeowners can’t pay for their house, which leads to banks collapsing.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
In many state governments severe cuts are already in the works, but the effects won’t appear in the unemployment numbers until later. Here in Arizona, the state was facing a $1.8 billion deficit and immediately took a huge chunk out of education, despite the fact that we’re already 49th in the nation in per capita spending. Teachers will not lose their job until the end of the school year, but already adjunct professors have been dismissed from the university system and a furlough system is in the works for others.
I was at a Phoenix park and recreation center earlier this week with my son. The customer service center for paying bills and getting permits is closing at month’s end. Facility hours, library hours, and associated programs are all being cut with staff soon to be laid off.
Critics look at the state aid as a big slush fund, but the money would have prevented some of the damage that will soon ripple through the rest of the economy.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Only way yo get a good outcome now would be for the sane Democrats in both houses to publicly and loudly tell Obama to STFU and get the hell out of their way, then tear up this atrocity, write a good bill without input from Rethug flat-earthers and preening brain-damaged “moderates”, and ram it through on a bare majority vote using the budget reconciliation process. Sadly that’s not gonna happen. We’re screwed.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Thank god we got rid of silly things like silly state financial help to keep silly employees in their silly jobs, silly project housing, silly school construction, silly broadband, and silly building modernization.
Some things cut might be genuinely silly (NSF, for instance, though it’s of course a worthy cause). These things I listed aren’t, and all of them will have many times over more stimulative effects than even the most intelligently designed tax cut, and they would build or protect infrastructure that will lead to stronger economic growth later on.
Hopefully this will all be fixed in conference committee. We can only pray. The vast majority of these cuts (>75%) are deeply craven and costly to the United States, motivated by nothing except a desire to get a pat on the back by Village editorial pages.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Isn’t a lot of the problem the fact that a lot of those assets turned out to be debt in pretty wrappers? And due to the repeal of Glass-Steagall, deposit money was being used to pay returns to investors for overrated debt qua investment? Then the music stopped. People started catching on, so there was an electronic run on the banks and people stopped putting their money into debt packages. The banks started screaming for bailouts with the excuse that we needed them to lend us money, though they spent our money on returns for worthless paper and were insolvent because of it.
Having invested so much in worthless paper, rather than actual investments that stimulate economies, we have a poor economy coupled with a finance system that has shammed itself to death.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
RSS INCONSISTENT WITH WEBPAGE ALERT
February 7th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Only way yo get a good outcome now would be for the sane Democrats in both houses to publicly and loudly tell Obama to STFU and get the hell out of their way
I agree. I’m all for civil war among the Democrats. It’s the gift to Republicans that keeps on giving.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“How can the entire world experience a debt financed consumption orgy? Who are we borrowing from, the Martians?”
Hints: credit expansion, fiat currency, central banks……
Expanding credit(= debt) out of thin air is easy, creating the permanent income increases required to pay it down isn’t. Why the hell do you think we got into this mess?
February 7th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
The NSF isn’t silly. It has been underfunded for years — even Newt has said as much. Other countries have been increasing this type of funding as we have been scaling it back.
The difference, however, is that NSF is a budget item. That amount could be assigned in a normal, non-stimulus budget. A budget which cannot be fillibustered. State funding, on the other hand, cannot appear in a federal budget.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Given all the drama here, how many people angrily criticizing the stimulus bill — or angrily defending it — have actually READ THE GODDAMM BILL?
The Bullshit Centrism Amendment hasn’t been published yet, has it?
February 7th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
I like the part where they put aside $650 Million to make sure I get my $40 Digital Television Conversion rebates.
Actually, I can get two rebates. Which means I can sell one rebate on Ebay and buy several cases of Yuengling beer.
It’s always sunny in Philadelphia.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Realist, are you aware of a scam called a ‘Ponzi scheme’
To answer your question: Each other.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
The difference, however, is that NSF is a budget item. That amount could be assigned in a normal, non-stimulus budget. A budget which cannot be fillibustered. State funding, on the other hand, cannot appear in a federal budget
The Budget is a Resolution, or Sense of the Senate action. Your right, it cannot be filibustered, However, before it becomes Law, it must be Appropriated thru Appropriations bills, and those can be filibustered. If you really want to ram something thru and get it passed into law, the best way is thru an Omnibus Bill, that can have all sorts of vital spending to keep the Government open for business, including defense measures and all sorts of special perk legislation that the minority wants too.
There is one in the oven right now, that will arrive for debate in the spring, I think, and the cuts can be put in then, as I expect they will be by House dems. Then it becomes a big game of chicken for the Senate Goopers to filibuster, and by doing so closing down the federal government. We all know what happened the last time they did that. Dems came out smelling like a fresh scrubbed Donkey.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Commentator ‘onceler’ got it right – it is Rush Bill. Or say Obama Tax Cut bill.
At this point, the best bet is for House Dems to reject this bill in the Conference. Let this whole farce get dropped. Indeed these folks in Congress are there to ’screw’ Americans and unfortunately Obama is not showing any spin to cut them short. What a shame.
Obama can not even hold the 40% Tax Cut line! Why elect him and these Democrats then?
February 7th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
“5) Same thing goes for TARP. NOBODY has explained why we need to save the bad banks, why the taxpayers has to take it in the shorts absorbing the losses of superrich investors, why the US government can’t simply create new good banks and have the new banks support the economy by lending to real businesses with real prospects making real, valuable products.”
Yup. We could have taken all the money we’ve pissed away trying to “save” the big banks (= big campaign contributors) and used it to create gov’t owned demand deposits in banks that are still sound (= the ones that didn’t fuck us over). These deposit would count as legal reserves and could be lent out many times over by the multiple allowed by the legal reserve ratio, making credit available to real businesses for investment rather than housing ponzi schemes. But of course the whores in D.C. have sold us the bullshit line that “solving the credit crisis” = “saving the big banks” simply because the big banks are the ones that bankroll their jobs.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
So for at least a year, no matter how bad the numbers get, and according to PK they are likely to get very very bad, we are going to be told:”We must wait for the stimulus to work.”
Why would we necessarily have to wait? Couldn’t we say “the economy is deteriorating more than expected, we need more stimulus?” If job losses continue at this rate, in 6 months we’re not going to be sitting around waiting for the stimulus to work.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Why would we necessarily have to wait?
Ya know, Brad DeLong also left off Krugman’s last paragraph. I don’t know if that is blog etiquette or something else.
Ok, so your judgement is that Obama will be able to go the well again in September with Nelson, Collins, & McKaskill and say that he blew it, nobody coulda predicted, hoocoodanode, and after six months of other crises, a possible SCOTUS appointment, Son-of-TARP & health & budget and say…
Give me two trillion more.
Ain’t gonna happen this year. The deficit will mount, revenues will decrease, and 20% unemployment would not be enough to overcome “Give it more time.” Death Spiral.
Krugman is very smart.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
One only wonders why Obama wanted to get out of the Senate so fast. With fellow Democrats likes these, who needs to worry about the Republicans.
My guess now is that Obama saw this problem coming and viewed the stimulus as a first step in a long series of steps to change the direction of our economy.
When things start going through the full budget process, through committee, all these good projects will get put back in. And they will only need 50 votes in the Senate.
Maybe Obama will double or triple the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget. I’m sure they have a huge backlog of projects.
Also, within a few months states will start slashing jobs and the local media will suddenly realize that Obama was right, the House Democrats were right and that the “centrists” are aren’t just out in left field, but are not even in the same ballpark.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Krugman is indeed very smart. That’s why he supported the more liberal candidate in the primary.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
http://www.recovery.gov/
After the bill is passed, we have this government resource to track where the money is going, anyway. I just hope that we aren’t enslaved to the quick return mentality that ignores the values of long-term investments and preventative measures like maintenance on levees.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
I’m concerned that without Senate Amendment 239, the E-Verify mandate being passed, that as many as 300,000 stimulus jobs would be given to illegal aliens.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
to #40, Andruw – huh? silly. no, Clinton’s idea of how to deal with the failing economy was even worse shit like a ‘gas tax holiday’.
I don’t blame Obama for what this bill has become, I blame him for bad strategy and bad follow-through. bad strategy = 1) putting ANY tax cuts in, at all, in the first place instead of negotiating them in, 2) setting “bipartisanship” as a goal rather than a means to an end. bad follow-through = 1) not speaking out forcefully until just a couple of days ago, 2) failing to go on TV (since his goal here was ‘bipartisanship’, and this is the only way he could have actually made that work) with Republican governors and Republican mayors who are begging for this aid, and having THEM call out their Republican congress members.
things could have been sooooo different.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Ain’t gonna happen this year. The deficit will mount, revenues will decrease, and 20% unemployment would not be enough to overcome “Give it more time.” Death Spiral.
20% unemployment and you think the senators are going to sit back and do nothing!? I’ll take that bet!
February 7th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Hey Matt, I feel bad that you have some real trolls here in your comments section. Not fun to read.
McCaskill sounds like a major tool here. I wonder if the Senate is actually going to VOTE on these cuts, and make people put their money where their mouth is. If I was a Democrat I’d NEVER vote for these cuts to state aid, schools, science. They are cutting out the best projects just to make room for more tax cuts. It’s insane.
Obama needs to push the House-Senate conference to reinstate these spending programs and remove the AMT until later this year. If you keep the package at $820 billion, but without all those tax cuts, it will be a lot harder for Snowe/Collins/Specter to suddenly vote against it.
If the spending isn’t restored, Obama should stop talking about this plan with create or save 3 million jobs. Instead, he should start using the number 2 million.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
and to #41 Wiley – too bad that there really isn’t much money in the bill to repair levees! especially egregious given that we have levees in New Orleans (hello!!!!!!!! Obama!!!) that failed quite spectacularly, still aren’t repaired, and the plan for one day doing so is woefully inadequate according to our own studies, and STILL isn’t funded after this god damn bill! there is, count it, $100B for infrastructure in this bill.
our own studies say that we need to invest $1-2T in order to just get above the current ‘D’ rating our infrastructure gets overall. we could have had a $1T stimulus bill, and if would have been very difficult to argue against. instead we got – Washington DC, as usual. and a wounded president.
February 7th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Clinton would have never set up herself in this ‘bipartisinship’ bullshit trap. She would’ve had the bill fail, and then the heat from every GOP local pol would hit their ‘nominal allies’ in Congress. And we win.
February 7th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Re Andruw’s comment “Clinton would have never set up herself in this ‘bipartisinship’ bullshit trap. She would’ve had the bill fail, and then the heat from every GOP local pol would hit their ‘nominal allies’ in Congress. And we win.”
—————–
You mean like she did with her 1993 healthcare plan?
February 7th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
If you want to see a concrete example of states’ getting screwed by the Senate stimulus, just take a look at what happened to Senate Amendment No. 297.
It would have eased the fiscal burden on states administering FMAP-eligible programs (like Medicaid, SCHIP, TANF, basically welfare as we know it), but no, it failed to pass by a mere three votes.
February 7th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Yeah, that;s a good analogy. Because trying to un-gay people is on the same level as building high-speed rail, extending unemployment benefits, or innoculating people.
Yeah, we shouldn’t do that. We should give unemployed people tax cuts instead. OOPS! No income, no benefit from a tax cut. Oh well.
Yeah, boosting the investor class will create jobs, as we;ve seen over the past 8 years.
February 7th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
re: However, this catastrophe seems to be more severe than all the others, including the Great Depression.
Oh good grief can we get a grip here? We are a long, long way from this being the Great Depression. Look at the unemployment numbers, even U6– still a long ways from the 1930s! In the 30s when a bank failed everyone lost their money that was in it. In the 30s unemployed people had nothing– no unemployment insurance, no COBRA, no food stamps or Medicaid. The stimulus bill everyone is whining about increases benefits to laid off workers and even helps fund their healthcare! In a stroke Obama has just overseen a massive expansion of the sfatey net, moving the ball farther down the field than even LBJ was able to do. Yes, I wish the state aid had not been cut, but my guess is that the states will be helped out on an as needed basis. Should any state actually go bankrupt the federal government will have no choice about assuming its responsibilities. No, this is not the Great Depression, it’s not even a 19th century Panic. You folks sound as hysterically unbalanced as the Right did after 9-11 with their apocalyptic fears. But OK, for form’s sake let’s give this a gloomy name: let’s call it the Little Depression.
February 7th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
If Obama would rather be the referee between Democrats and Republicans than lead the Democratic party, so be it. But neither he nor you should be ticked if/when that causes Democrats to freeze him out.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Well, they got almost as much money in tax cuts as in stimulus. Doesn;t exactly sound like a political Waterloo to me.
Maybe Obama should have spent more time working those Democrats and less time asking the Republicans for their input? Just a thought.
For god’s sake, how?
For god’s sake, how?
February 7th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Yeah, what a leap it is to speculate that by 2 years from now the number of unemployed across America will have increased by 600,000. You;d think we were in economic freefall or something!
February 7th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Here is what the CBO blog that Krugman links to says:
For Krugman’s ‘first cut’ to be accurate, that this 100B (about 13%) difference will cut 600K jobs, potentially the very highest end of the CBO range has to be used (at a multiplier of 1.0 for the marginal dollar removed). Even if he’s using a multiplier of 1.5, he’d still be using a job creation estimate baseline that is 25% higher than the middle of the estimate range. If the range estimate is not a normal distribution than this is fine, but that does not seem very likely.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
I’m so glad McCaskill’s face will be all over this when the inadequate package fails to deliver because it’s inadequate.
So she’s against HeadStart, Food stamps, extended COBRA and aid to state governments. I realize she’s from Missouri, where the rules are evilly different, but I still wonder why exactly does she bother to consider herself a Democrat? Why even bother to drag herself off to DC, when Kit Bond could screw things up as well all by his lonesome.
Get off your pompous soapbox and read St. Matthew’s gospel, you self-righteous fraud. I’ve got a lot of neighbors wondering how they are going to put food on the table for their kids through the end of the month. you’re just worried about the deficit because your big contributors might have to pay slightly more taxes someday.
I’ve got a lot of friends and neighbors wondering how they are going to put food on the table this and next month for their kids.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:39 am
DTM-
The senate CBO estimates were around 10% higher for job creation (which makes sense if the bill was about 10% greater). Which sort of shows what intuition would: the stimulus multiplier of the last marginal dollar is far less than the first one. And with the straight linear approximation of $143K spent per job created in the cut budget (86 billion less = > 600K less jobs), the stimulus multiplier actually appears to be a little less than 1. (excluding the fact that some jobs are over two years and so would be closer to 70K per year, which ain’t all that bad, using the thumbrule that the expense of an employee to an employer is around 150% of pre-tax salary)
February 8th, 2009 at 12:40 am
“which make sense *since* the bill was about 10% greater”
February 8th, 2009 at 12:48 am
The final bill is going to have something like $500 billion or more in spending. There is no way to view that as anything but a huge loss.
Given that there are 41 Senators in the GOP caucus, that’s like saying that Scarlett Johannson’s failure to come over tonight and shag me silly is a great loss.
As for McCaskill, what makes it disappointing is that she is likely to be Obama’s eyes and ears among the Blue Dogs, so you have to presume they are fixed on the idea of fucking over state budgets and that he’s fine with that.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:01 am
How do these morons get elected? Are we not the real fools/idiots having elected them. We are doomed.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:46 am
I’ve had it with “centrists” Democrats who are 100% oblivious to how ridiculous the are. McCaskill is “proud” of the fact that they cut 100B out of the Stimulus package. Among her cuts were $75 million to the Smithsonian.
How is McCaskill going to blow off steam after a hard week? With a visit to the newly renovated SMITHSONIAN.
How was that renovation paid for? With FEDERAL money.
I guess McCaskill is really lucky that the money for the Smithsonian renovation was approved under a Republican-dominated Congress and signed by George Buss. Had Democrats like McCaskill been in charge all of the “silly” stuff like infrastructure spending would have been OUT and the renovation never would have happened.
Hope she enjoyed her trip to the grocery store and her movie date. For millions of unemployed Americans a trip to the grocery store and a movie date wasn’t possible last night.
February 8th, 2009 at 6:05 am
If much or all of the state/local government subsidies aren’t restored to the stimulus bill, look for them to wind up in the (filibuster-proof) budget reconciliation bill.
This is not only a no-brainer on stemming job losses; it has a many-tentacled constituency — elected officials from governors down to county supervisors and school boards, state and local government employees, contractors and their employees, folks who want their potholes filled and trash collected — that no member of Congress can afford to buck.
Bail out the banks but lay off cops, firefighters and teachers? Don’t think so.
February 8th, 2009 at 6:27 am
The Ponzi scheme that was America for decades has collapsed.
Obama now has two chief goals:
To make good the losses of our investor class overlords and
to constrain unemployment just enough so as to avoid blood in the streets.
Even assuming that he can accomplish the second the future is bleak.
The first is already a done deal of course. Not for nothing is Obama the largest recipient IN HISTORY of Wall Street bribes.
The America which emerges will be one in which the middle class has devolved to merge with the poor into one UberLowerClass.
We will live in a world of WalMart and Tiffanys but no Macys.
We are moving into an era of lowered expectations and even more lowered outcomes.
And it is ALL our fault.
We have allowed ourselves to be bought off with flat screen TVs and iPhone apps as globalization destroyed first our manufacturing and increasingly our service cores.
We elected the thieving fuckers.
Now even the melting ice caps won’t raise all our boats.
It is all OUR fault.
February 8th, 2009 at 6:43 am
Yeah, I think impeachment might be required — to make sure his “strategy” is ultimately successful.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:55 am
And just which reputable economists did McCaskill consult on all this? She didn’t-she and the other “moderate” clowns just winged it.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:35 am
There are gonna be a lot more angry people with a lot of free time on their hands and you know what they say about idle hands.
It’s very clear the Senate doesn’t realize this is a highly combustible moment in time.
Calls from the hoi polloi for good old fashioned tar and feathers are in their future, methinks.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:44 am
But we’ve all watched them do this for a long, long time now- they just want to be seen splitting the difference, difference of what they neither know nor care. So how in the hell was Obama not aware of, and prepared for (with a much bigger and better initial proposal that could be whittled down to something that was still good), this screamingly predictable dynamic that anybody could have seen coming ten miles away? It’s really mind-boggling.
Or rather, it makes you wonder if Obama isn’t at heart actually a Blue Dog himself, and quite comfortable with this inadequate package. His appointments certainly make it look that way (Emanuel and Summers being two of the earliest and worst).
February 8th, 2009 at 9:02 am
There was never any real need for 60 votes here. The Senate WANTED 60 votes, it never NEEDED 60 votes. They could have passed this bill with the budget reconciliation process. They chose not to. They chose to do that because Obama damanded a bipartisan bill.
If this bill fails, it will be Obama’s fault. Not the Republicans fault. Not Paul Krugmans fault. Not even the
Senates fault. IF, and in all likelihood when, this bill fails, Obama will suffer the consequences and deserves to.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:07 am
You can make whatever arguments you want about who ‘owns’ this. When it fails, the electorate will blame Obama and the entire Democratic party. That’s how human psychology works. You blame the people in charge when things go bad, even if it’s not actually their fault. Republicans understand that, and that’s why they are making sure this is a terrible bill and then refusing to vote for it. They want it to fail, and they want the electorate to know they didn’t support it.
There’s nothing you can say, no argument you can make, that will trump that. If the economy isn’t, at the very least, stabilized by 2012, Obama can kiss the whitehouse good bye and the Democratic party will have destroyed the only issue they have ALWAYS had going for them. The Vietnam destroyed the public’s ability to trust the party with national defense. A second Great Depression will kill this party unless we deal with it effectively.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:17 am
it is actually Democrats who are constraining the bill
Which is typical, and frustrating beyond measure. The republican caucus, at least in the house, is disciplined enough that they take Boner’s marching orders. Yet as you said, 11 Democrats defected. And in the Senate, Reid seems to have no control over the blue dog asshats at all.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:37 am
I can’t wait to see DTM’s sage moderate ruminations when U6 hits 25 – 30 % and there are riots all over the country. (It’s already over 13% with no bottom anywhere in sight)
People like DTM (and Obama) ARE the problem. They simply don’t understand that we’re staring down an abyss. The usual Washington bullshit will be fatal this time around.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:07 am
On the bright side, with the aid to state governments being the single most defensible part of the bill, it should be easy to pass an “Aid to state governments bill” in 6 months.
State governments are going to take drastic measures that have significant detrimental impact on voters. When that actually starts happening, the legislative environment will change.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Notorious P.A.T.- Either it matters what the money gets spent on, or it doesn’t.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:27 am
You’re just throwing non sequiturs around. “If Obama had worn brown socks, the wind would blow from the north”. I think you’re saying that a more partisan approach would have emboldened the Republicans–but virtually none of them supported Obama’s bipartisan approach anyway. The Republicans understand only one thing: strength. To them, it is an attempt at cooperation that is weakness. If Obama had steamrolled them he’d have had a much better chance of getting what he wanted.
What the hell does that have to do with this stimulus bill fight?
Not all spending is equally stimulative, though. Money for innoculating children is highly stimulative, because people are willing to spend money to protect their kids. Money for some christian con artist to try and ungay people? For all we know he’d take that money and put it in his nice tax-free church and sit on it. But I do agree: it’s better to spend money than not.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:29 am
You’re the one engaging in magical thinking, because that’s just breathtakingly naive. Obama will NOT get another bite of the stimulus apple. The “New Deal prolonged the Depression” crowd will say “see, we told you it wouldn’t work”, and the MSM will work overtime to help them sell that message. The result will be a devastating Japanese-style Lost Decade only worse, with accompanying massive social unrest, and a failed Presidency leading to God knows what in 2012.
You need to wake up from your peaceful slumber. Our collective hair is on fire and the one and only chance to put out the fire may be getting wasted right now.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Here is a fact. Democrats need 2 republican Senators to vote with them to pass this bill. Everything flows from that certainty. There is no other way around it other than nuking the filibuster and destroying the very reason the Senate was created by the Founders in the first place — To prevent a tyranny of the majority.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Not much different than nationalizing the banks, except this way you have to build an entire parallel banking system on short notice. Not easy.
Frustrating, but to be honest I think having lockstep party voting is ultimately an undesirable development.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
The amount of political pessimism on display here is brethtakingly absurd. Obama’s first major initiative has seen some rough-housing in Congress, and a bit of trimming around the edges. From that we get dire prognostications of a failed presidency and horrors unbounded to follow. As I said above folks, GET A GRIP!
Some historical parallels might help. Cltinton’s economic stimulus bill failed in 1993, and his deficit reduction package passed by a single vote, while he got creame on gay in the military. Yet despite those initial difficulties he went on to have a moderately successful presidency and handily won reelection in 1996.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
other than nuking the filibuster and destroying the very reason the Senate was created by the Founders in the first place — To prevent a tyranny of the majority.
Oh, spare us this shit. The filibuster isn’t part of the Senate’s constitutional . It’s already a non-majoritarian body, given that it conceivably allows the representatives of 20% of the population to get 51 votes. If that were the intention, then you’d be arguing the rights of the Loyalists to bring back the King as part of a compromise bill.
February 8th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
His “plan” is more welfare for rich financial industry execs and shareholders. Yay. Just the think to fuel populist resentment AGAINST OBAMA as more and more people lose their jobs.
You’re as oblivious and tone deaf as the likes of McCaskill.
February 9th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Best website links related to Online Job sites in India!
http://www.back2office.com
In order achieve success in their job search, job seekers must target a wide range of Job sites and use all the available resources. Yes, its time consuming. However, dedicating the time and energy will pay off with more and better job leads, more interviews and more job offers!
March 11th, 2009 at 4:18 am
It is the coolest site,keep so!
March 12th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
March 17th, 2009 at 2:20 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:54 am
tramadol
Great site. Good info
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:19 am
buy viagra online
I want to say – thank you for this!
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:22 am
viagra
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
April 2nd, 2009 at 4:54 am
Incredible site!
buy cheap viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 4:47 am
Very interesting site, Hope it will always be alive! viagra