[dante]

Concerned about the economy? Yes. Scared enough to give carte blanche to the Democrats to put whatever pet project or pork that they can think of into a bill to call it "stimulus?" Nope. There are a lot of good ideas in this bill, but also a lot of BAD ideas. I'm sick and tired of politicians coming around saying that the sky is falling and we have to pass something NOW with little accountability and no oversight. BO says not to let perfect be the enemy of good. I disagree. I want perfect. I don't want pet projects, I don't want "good ideas that aren't stimulus", I want perfection. I want projects that are ready to go and will create immediate jobs. I want tax cuts that have been proven to stimulate spending (payroll tax cut spread throughout the year), not some nondescript corporate tax cut that hasn't proved to do anything. C'mon Democrats, I voted for you and now I'm going to hold you accountable.

 

[Samirol]

We live in a plutocracy, you won't get perfect. You probably won't get a payroll tax cut, that doesn't benefit the rich as much as corporate tax cuts.

Spending is a much better stimulus than tax cuts, in any form. I would rather see spending towards some pet project of some Senator than see tax cuts, because that has a greater effect.

You will never, ever, get perfect, but this package is decent.

edit: Spending is the most effective stimulus, considering how ****ed we are going to be when alt as and option arms switch from their teaser rate to the real rate, there will be more foreclosures and we will be deeper in crap. We need aggressive spending to combat it, not tax cuts.

 

[$tinkle]

if i didn't know any better, i'd think you're all for the gov't to continue to bail people out of their poor judgment.

no gov't in history has ever been able to accomplish this. but then again, we've never had obama.

and why should i be "scared" for the jan job loss numbers? concerned, yes. interested, yes. i stopped being a roadie a decade ago, so fear's no longer a part of my nature.

 

[Samirol]

Keynesian spending during the Great Depression helped out those that invested in the stock market and lost all their money, so I'm not sure what you are talking about.

The economic problem isn't that people got a loan that they couldn't afford.

 

[$tinkle]

am i the only one here who chooses hope over fear?

 

[$tinkle]

Keynesian spending during the Great Depression helped out those that invested in the stock market and lost all their money, so I'm not sure what you are talking about.

when did we pull out of that? after wwii

The economic problem isn't that people got a loan that they couldn't afford.

sufficient? no.
necessary? quite.

 

[$tinkle]

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9976/hr1aspassed.pdf

admit it: you have pornstar sex

 

[Samirol]

when did we pull out of that? after wwii

We were getting out of it, but then we stopped being aggressive in 1936/37, causing a recession. We need consistent, aggressive action.

 

[JohnE]

Wish someone would stimulate my package...

 

[dante]

We were getting out of it, but then we stopped being aggressive in 1936/37, causing a recession. We need consistent, aggressive action.

I'm not prepared to take this as a given. For every "economist" that claims that the new deal got us out of the depression, there's an "economist" that claims that the new deal prolonged the depression and was ultimately responsible for the subsequent 1937 crash. The fact is we'll never know. We're far beyond theoretical economics and into more of a political science aspect, trying to take a single event and extrapolate a multitude of causes and effects.

We're in this mess after a 7 year period of tax cuts, huge government spending, soaring deficits and low interest rates. So you're saying (with a straight face) that the only way out of this is tax cuts, huge government spending, soaring deficits and low interest rates?

 

[Toshi]

admit it: you have pornstar sex

it's true. i'm no superhero, tho, and can't stimulate the entire economy

 

[Toshi]

I'm not prepared to take this as a given. For every "economist" that claims that the new deal got us out of the depression, there's an "economist" that claims that the new deal prolonged the depression and was ultimately responsible for the subsequent 1937 crash. The fact is we'll never know. We're far beyond theoretical economics and into more of a political science aspect, trying to take a single event and extrapolate a multitude of causes and effects.

We're in this mess after a 7 year period of tax cuts, huge government spending, soaring deficits and low interest rates. So you're saying (with a straight face) that the only way out of this is tax cuts, huge government spending, soaring deficits and low interest rates?

this is exactly the same attitude that skeptics of global warming adopt. yes, there are a variety of opinions amongst accredited-college-level-prof economists. however, it's not nearly a 50/50 split just as it's nothing near the same for those who are skeptical of human activities contributing significantly to global warming.

read brad delong and paul krugman's blogs and you'll see that the chicago school (ie the Treasury View, stimulus skeptics) is out to lunch.

http://delong.typepad.com/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

 

[ohio]

We're in this mess after a 7 year period of tax cuts, huge government spending, soaring deficits and low interest rates. So you're saying (with a straight face) that the only way out of this is tax cuts, huge government spending, soaring deficits and low interest rates?

Not all tax cuts are equal and not all spending is equal.

We cut taxes to people that held onto their profits and we spent money in ways that it would never circulate through the economy. We used first line of defense stimulus tools like low interest rates and deficits while the economy was growing (and too fast at that), which now gives us no buffer to use them properly when they are needed.

While I'm against net tax cuts of any kind at this stage, I'm all for reworking the progression curve and spending in ways that are specifically designed to stimulate spending and circulate cash through the economy.

 

[$tinkle]

Commanding Heights, the rise & fall of keynsian economics:

part 1
part 2
part 3

bloody long

 

[Toshi]

Commanding Heights, the rise & fall of keynsian economics:

part 1
part 2
part 3

bloody long

sweet jeebus. 6h? Cliffs Notes?

 

[Samirol]

sweet jeebus. 6h? Cliffs Notes?

It can be summed up as: free market

 

[$tinkle]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commanding_Heights

 

[Toshi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commanding_Heights

danke.

The current financial crisis has led to a swing back to Keynesianism as the Free Markets ideas of Milton Friedman are once again held in serious doubt. The global economic collapse and the year long recession at the end of the Bush Presidency is widely believed to have cost John McCain the 2008 Presidential election and sweeping losses for the GOP in both houses of Congress. Since September, politicians on both sides tend to support increased transparency and more robust regulation

 

[Samirol]

Dante, I've noticed that you and others in this thread have been abusing "pork". Pork is really only earmarks that people slip in, not spending that you don't like.

 

[dan-o]

Pork is really only earmarks that people slip in, not spending that you don't like.

"Pork" is also spending that, while perhaps beneficial in its own right, is unrelated to the task at hand, ie economic stimulus.

 

[$tinkle]

i know i can find a list of spending unrelated to this "urgent" stimulus pkg, but i'd have to go to one of "those" sites.

suffice it to say i trust my gov't as far as i can overthrow them

 

[Samirol]

"Pork" is also spending that, while perhaps beneficial in its own right, is unrelated to the task at hand, ie economic stimulus.

Well, the Republicans are trying to change definitions of words again, but pork barrel spending is strictly spending that benefits only the constituents of the politician and is added through the appropriation committees.

You may consider the spending wasteful and inefficient, but it isn't pork.

 

[$tinkle]

Well, the Republicans are trying to change definitions of words again,

yes, b/c dems made no political hay whatsoever in the prev 8 yrs

good catch

 

[Samirol]

yes, b/c dems made no political hay whatsoever in the prev 8 yrs

good catch

Dems aren't the ones redefining pork in this particular scenario, unless you have a quote or some kind of evidence that they are, in which case I'll edit it

 

[$tinkle]

 

[Defenestrated]

If I hear the word "pork" used un-ironically one more time I am liable to snap.

Its like the Republican version of the hopefest groupthink cluster****.

 

[Toshi]

krugman is highly entertaining. i'm glad he's not a wallflower -- someone has to speak up for rationality.

also pt 1, not as entertaining:　

 

[Toshi]

here are my thoughts on the stimulus package as posted on my blog:

HR 1, the stimulus package

today the house passed the conference report of HR 1, aka the compromise house-senate version of the stimulus package. it looks that the senate will pass it today as well.

not a single republican representative will have voted for it. only 3 moderates in the senate will have crossed the party line. this is reprehensible. i hope the voters remember this when these people are up for reelection in 2010, 2012, and 2014. offering "no" as your official party line is the attitude of 3 year olds, not of people supposedly responsible for the public welfare.

it is a piece of legislation that has many parts, and i encourage readers to at least view its summary on house speaker pelosi's web page, if not read the actual text on thomas.loc.gov once it is published. here are a few of the provisions that i find especially relevant or interesting:

1. the tax credits for wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and solar extend to 2012-2013. this is good for ensuring the stability of these emerging industries, and should unlock private capital as well now that the market is better defined.

2. there will be a tax credit of up to $7500 for cars with a sufficiently large battery pack. at this point the only vehicle that meets the criteria for the maximum credit, which is scaled by the capacity of the battery, is the vaporware Chevy Volt by the dead-man-walking General Motors. i hope that the credit spurs other companies into actually releasing something, and furthermore hope that this credit will be applicable to 3-wheel vehicles such as the Aptera or the third, "affordable" model from Tesla. i don't think i'm alone in that i would rather support a small company that designs and builds their cars in silicon valley such as Aptera or Tesla instead of a multinational corporation such as GM that is nominally a US company but in reality builds their largely unappealing vehicles in mexico and canada using a proportion of domestic content that is oftentimes equal or less than that of "imported" vehicles.

3. although tax incentives are little lacking in subtlety to be classified as nudges, perhaps, there are many incentives to "do the right thing" that are applicable to people of my age and position (ie, late 20s/early 30s, thinking of buying a house someday, etc.). there's a $8000 first time homebuyers refundable credit with no repayment unlike this year's $7500 credit that's applicable until the end of calendar year 2009; there are tax credits for purchasing energy efficient furnaces, windows, doors, and insulation for said hypothetical house; there is a tax deduction to offset the local sales and excise taxes one might pay on the purchase of a new car this year; and there is the tax credit mentioned above to make this hypothetical new car a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. all a nice picture but i fear that the sales tax credit is paltry compared to the purchase and upkeep of a car, the plug-in credit irrelevant without actual vehicles to which it's applicable, and that the first-time homebuyer's credit will just serve to raise prices by $8000 -- ie, no net benefit to the buyer.

4. NIH landed $10 billion in funding over an unspecified number of years, which isn't a surprise. what is surprising and heartening is that basic/non-sexy research at NSF landed $3 billion, and NASA $1 billion including $400 million specifically for climate change research. also important to note is that pharmaceutical companies' efforts to remove $1.1 billion in funding for comparative effectiveness research were stymied and the funds remained. knowing how effective our very expensive treatments are is what separates modern medicine from the practice of witchdoctors and modern witch doctors, ie chiropractic.

5. Pell Grant amounts and funding are increased. this might help jessica for grad school -- yes, some grad students are eligible for them, not just undergrads.

6. public transit gets $8.4 billion and there's $8 billion on top of that for high speed rail. this investment will help the country for decades to come. i personally intend to only live in cities where public transit is in place and is practical to use -- i feel it's that important to quality of life. i will not spend my life in a car in traffic while commuting to work, simple as that.

7. finally, there is the direct tax relief. if i were scraping by i'd find the up-to-$400/worker tax break a bigger deal. similarly with the COBRA relief and unemployment insurance extensions. as a worker who has a savings rate decidedly higher than the national average of 0% these won't really affect me or my spending patterns. i personally am much more excited about the research, infrastructure, transit, energy, and automotive aspects of the bill.

all in all i feel it's a good thing. i hope it works. i don't hope for a return to the good old days -- and indeed i found those days distasteful! not to mention unsustainable -- but i do hope for a stable economy, one without hoovervilles.

 

[ohio]

Thanks for that, Toshi. It's a very helpful start... I need to dig through the whole thing, myself.

And yes, I agree the childish behavior of the republican's is insulting. It seems that for many ideology and force-of-habit trumps concern for the people they were elected to represent.

 

[$tinkle]

toshi, do you have any comments about the widely publicized vow of 48 hrs of review from the finalized package until roll call?

do you believe there's reprehensible behavior by some reps to sneak in spending which is certainly not defensible as emergency stimulus? if so, do you then think this is just "part of doing business"?

most importantly, can you articulate the republicans' arguments (not the strawmen args) for why they chose to not approve the legislation as drafted?

 

[Toshi]

the passed bill is a modified but essentially similar version to the one that was passed by the house on january 15. i took the initiative to read parts of the actual text, which was freely available. you can read my electric-vehicle-specific comments here: http://www.xanga.com/toshiclark/689515342/electric-cars-and-the-bailout-bill/ .

if legislators and their aides are too lazy to read admittedly a long and dense bill in a month then they don't deserve their keep. 48h is an exaggeration given the above.

i think there probably is reprehensible behavior on the periphery, and i don't know exactly what changes were made in committee. i do know that some big changes were made, such as radically increasing the amount of money for high-speed rail. i'm sure some "local interests" had a stake in that decision even if the money is not earmarked for particular projects. however, i think that these issues are not central to the debate, much like mccain's harping about earmarks wrt the federal budget was pitiful and irrelevant. if obama can be believed, recovery.gov will be the place to go to see exactly what is being done with the money.

how i'd characterize the republican's argument is that they either deliberately or through ignorance misinterpret economists' data in order to support their ideological belief that tax cuts and monetary policy are the cure to all economic woes. see romer and romer's paper that has been widely and incorrectly quoted as supporting a higher multiplier for tax cuts vs. fiscal policy, and compare to christie romer's actual comments given the situation that we have (0 federal funds rate, far from full employment, monetary policy of an unprecedented scale already in effect, with little effect).

republicans also like to quote larry summers out of context from last fall: timely, targeted, and something or other i can't recall. that'd be a good argument if it were still last fall, but the republicans and bush just sat and spun on their thumbs. the situation is seen to be much more dire now, and even zandi, mccain's former advisor, says the current stimulus is too small, if anything.

 

[Defenestrated]

It seems as though the Congressional Republicans think that if they act like six year olds and stall as much legislation as possible while millions of Americans starve then they will be able to win in 2012.

This is why I don't like political parties, at some point they are going to begin caring more about the preservation of their own power and less about the well being of the people.

The most frustrating part to me is that many Americans sympathize with the congressional Republicans while simultaneously being **** on by their inaction.

 

[IH8Rice]

wtf is $13 extra a paycheck really going to do? thats not even enough for a good lap dance

 

[Silver]

The Pentagon blows through more than this EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN MOTHER****ING BABY RAPING YEAR.

Republicans against deficits are like death row inmates who suddenly find Jesus...

 

[Toshi]

a breakdown of the spending in the stimulus, by category

http://www.propublica.org/special/the-stimulus-plan-a-detailed-list-of-spending

 

[$tinkle]

if legislators and their aides are too lazy to read admittedly a long and dense bill in a month then they don't deserve their keep. 48h is an exaggeration given the above.

one thing that's not an exaggeration is the "urgency" of this measure, WHICH HAS YET TO BE SIGNED. i would have thought obama would have put on his track suit & jogged the ~2 miles to the Hill to sign it upon passage.

don't you find anything wrong with having a roll call vote w/o reading the text? imagine your a rep/sen. they call on you, and you haven't read it. in fact, you've barely skimmed the 65 pages of table of contents, or the 94 pages of high-level charts of figures, to say nothing of the soon-to-be-legally-binding written words. what's a responsible congressman to do? we're talking by far the biggest spending bill in the history of history. iirc, not a single congressman can honestly say they or their staff has read it. to include even after voting on it.

i heard today the doe had been allocated $50B in '05 for some efforts which still haven't been performed. it's going to take ages to spend 870B. seems to me tax cuts - while not the solution - is going to more quickly get money flowing.

 

[Toshi]

that's why tax cuts are a part of the measure. part of it is rightly set aside for infrastructure and improvement projects that will continue to have a positive effect years after the tax cuts are forgotten.

i agree that waiting until tuesday to sign the measure is somewhat odd. tuesday does meet obama's self-imposed mid-feb deadline, however, and i suppose agencies need a little bit of time to start actually implementing these things.

 

[jimmydean]

don't you find anything wrong with having a roll call vote w/o reading the text? imagine your a rep/sen. they call on you, and you haven't read it. in fact, you've barely skimmed the 65 pages of table of contents, or the 94 pages of high-level charts of figures, to say nothing of the soon-to-be-legally-binding written words. what's a responsible congressman to do? we're talking by far the biggest spending bill in the history of history. iirc, not a single congressman can honestly say they or their staff has read it. to include even after voting on it.

Because we ALL know the last draft of the Patriot Act (finished the night prior) was clearly committed to memory by all members of congress prior to voting.

 

[$tinkle]

Because we ALL know the last draft of the Patriot Act (finished the night prior) was clearly committed to memory by all members of congress prior to voting.

i'm going to 9/11 your sorry excuse for patriotism right in the ann coulter w/ a life-like guiliani phallus

 

[jimmydean]

I feel stimulated already.