The administration’s claim of nearly 640,000 jobs created or “saved” by the $787 billion stimulus bill continues to be savaged by traditional media outlets for inaccuracies.

From the Washington Examiner:

More than ten percent of the jobs the Obama administration has claimed were “created or saved” by the $787 billion stimulus package are doubtful or imaginary, according to reports compiled from eleven major newspapers and the Associated Press.

Based only on our analysis of stimulus media coverage in the last two weeks, The Examiner has created this interactive map to document exaggerated stimulus claims. The map, which will be updated as new revelations appear, currently reflects an exaggeration by the Obama administration of about 75,000 jobs, out of the 640,000 jobs supposedly “created or saved.”

From ABC News, a caution about some of the details:

Here’s a stimulus success story: In Arizona’s 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that’s what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.

There’s one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts.

And ABC News has found many more entries for projects like this in places that are incorrectly identified.

And the Sacramento Bee notes some problems with the statistics from the Golden State:

Up to one-fourth of the 110,000 jobs reported as saved by federal stimulus money in California probably never were in danger, a Bee review has found.

It would be easy to criticize the administration for lacking the critical oversight necessary to get the statistics right. After all, none other than VP “Nobody Messes with Joe” Biden was assigned to be the official watchdog.

But piddling little details like actual real numbers aside, economics is the dismal science. And its very hard to determine exactly what effect a spending program has on the job market.

The Wall Street Journal, usually not considered a bastion of liberal economic thought, observes that:

It’s easy to ridicule the White House’s estimate that 650,000 jobs have so far been “saved or created” by the $150 billion spent so far from their $787 billion stimulus bill. That’s because while it’s possible to measure jobs created by the stimulus (for example, counting the number of construction workers on an infrastructure project funded by the bill), it’s a lot less clear how you measure jobs saved by it.

“One can search economic textbooks forever without finding a concept called ‘jobs saved’,” said Allan Meltzer, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, in a memo to House of Representatives Republican leader John Boehner today. “How can anyone know that his or her job has been saved?”

The disparate estimates come down to the multiplier effect. There are jobs directly created, and then there are jobs that are created or saved because the direct beneficiaries are still employed. For example, the stimulus money may have financed a construction workers’ job, but it also may have saved the job of someone at the grocery store where he shops. There’s also the issue of government jobs saved. Many states were planning layoffs that were either canceled or postponed because of stimulus money. But again, those numbers are difficult to quantify.

The Journal’s panel of 46 economists had predicted a loss of 271,000 jobs per month without the stimulus bill, and a less-catastrophic loss of 183,000 jobs if the bill passed. Reality, as if to prove the “dismal science” label correct, chimed in with a job loss of about 400,000 per month with the stimulus.

That panel’s prediction was the basis for VP Biden’s claim that the stimulus will create or “save” a million jobs, according to the Journal.

There’s an old joke that goes like this: If you laid all the economists in the world end to end, they still wouldn’t come to the right conclusion.

And that’s the danger in relying on government to solve economic problems. You hope the predictions are right before the biggest entity in the known universe sucks all the oxygen out of the room.

Cross posted to FrankHagan.com

Here’s a story you don’t hear about too often: How many stimulus funding bids have been outright rejected? This month, the Vice President has been jet-setting around the U.S. to some of the small towns and cities receiving stimulus money, touting progress, job creation and success. Yet, behind the scenes, Biden might be feeling a bit anxious, as though a lot is riding on the use of stimulus money.

Policing states’ use of funding is just one of the many tasks assigned to this powerful VP, of course, but as Joe points out, his “rear end is on the line.” He told his aides to return any email or phone call from states in-need of guidance within 24 hours. In a conference call with the mayors, he told them, “It’s so important that you make sure — don’t get mad at me — that there are no water parks, golf courses or anything that doesn’t pass, not only the test of the law, but also the sniff test, because we’ve got to do this thing right.”

Let’s face it: no one wants another public backlash like the circus that occurred following AIG’s misuse of funds to whisk employees away on lavish business seminars or to pay exorbitant bonuses. So what is Sheriff Joe saying “no” to these days? Continue Reading…

Thanks to Justin and company for welcoming me on here as a regular contributor. I will be posting on a number of issues, but one area you can expect that I will regularly be tracking is technology related developments and how they interact with the political world and policy. I also live less than ten miles from the Nebraska/Iowa border, so I’ll try to keep an eye on 2012 developments as the contenders test the waters there as well, on top of other interests like election reform, social issues, polling analysis and any number of things that I come across while skimming the hundreds of tweets and RSS feeds I go through every day. I hope you enjoy it, and now… on with the show!

We’ve been hearing about cellulosic ethanol for several years now, generally with the caveat that were at least a few years, and a few scientific breakthroughs, away from it coming to market and helping wean us from foreign oil. Unlike corn, which breaks down into the sugars necessary to be processed into ethanol relatively easily, cellulose is a hardy material that takes time and energy to break down. Its upside is that there happens to be more cellulose present than any other organic molecule on the planet. This is why millions upon millions of dollars has been poured into cellulosic ethanol research, genetically modifying naturally occurring enzymes to break it down faster and looking for ways to bring the price per gallon down closer to the price of gasoline.

Unlike corn, which takes land out of food production, is inefficient as far as how much energy it takes to produce and is a high maintenance crop, finding raw material for a cellulosic plant is easy. Wood chips from sawmills, the kudzu scourge spreading through the hot and humid Southeast, agricultural waste and even up to 80 percent of what ends up in our landfills could be used to make cellulosic ethanol.  Thankfully, the millions of dollars in research and development have begun to bear fruit.

A gas station near Ottawa is the first in the world to begin selling a cellulosic blend, called CE-10, to the public. Iogen, the company behind the demonstration plant that produced the fuel, plans to build its first full scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Saskatchewan. It has reached an agreement with the local government and Royal Dutch Shell to convert an old Mill site to their purposes, with the government even agreeing to purchase any green energy produced at the site. The running demonstration plant only has the capacity to produce about 3 million liters of ethanol each year, using wheat straw agricultural waste, while the new plant will be able to pump out about 75 million liters. It will make use of a more diverse feed stock, including agricultural waste from other crops, grasses native to nearby areas and even wood chips from area mills.

The march of progress continues, with a number of large companies making big investments into these technologies. Last year GM purchased a large share of Coskata, a big player in the emerging cellulosic ethanol industry, who claims to have developed a process that simplefies the complex and costly process of breaking down cellulose and brings the cost of production down to being competitive with gasoline. There are as many as two dozen companies with plans to build plants similar to Iogen’s, but the economic downturn is effecting their ability to finance these projects. Coskata is hoping to get some stimulus money, in the form of loan guarantees, to help finance its plant, with an estimated production of 50-100 million gallons a year.

As President Obama often says, if we intend to be a leader in the green energy industry of tomorrow, we need to move boldly in that direction today. Now is not the time to let companies who wish to lead us in there falter because of financing problems. Some are talking about a new stimulus bill, which most people reasonably see as a terrible idea, that would focus on these kinds of projects and job creation. The first should have done so, and I have little confidence that a new one would make it through congress without being similarly unfocused and pork laden.

We don’t get too many of these chances, where we can kill three birds with one stone. Job creation, independence from foreign oil and environmental progress can all be had with some smart funding priorities. Lets hope the administration recognizes this in time.

Last night, at a major Republican fundraiser, GOP leaders had some of their harshest words yet for President Obama and his agenda.

Newt Gingrich said the president’s stimulus plan has already failed. And:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Obama has a “radical agenda.” Republicans have “watched them take over banks, insurance companies, auto companies,” he said, “and now they want to take over your health care.”

“We’re going to need some wins next November to slow down their agenda,” said McConnell. House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said Democrats are using their control of Congress “to bury our children and the middle class under a mountain of debt.”

While I never think defeatism is a great political strategy, I’m not sure the Republicans have a another political option but to hope the economy fails to rebound before 2010. The party is too weak in Congress to push through any alternate agenda to the president’s and supporting Obama’s economic plan does nothing to differentiate the party from its opposition.

Unfortunately for Gingrich et. al., there’s a bit of a gap between claiming something has failed and that something actually failing. I’m quite worried about the mountain of debt we’re creating and the precedent we’re setting with the government’s part-ownership of GM, but it’s far too early for me to believe Obama’s measures won’t give the economy a boost. If you want to call it a failure of principle, that’s one thing. But it’s quite premature to say the raw result is failure.

Whether you think the stimulus plan is a brilliant idea or a dangerous waste of money, chances are, you wouldn’t mind getting your hands on a little of that $787 billion the government will be paying out. So, how can you cash in (in ways larger than the pittance of a tax break most of us will receive)?

Here’s some industries you might want to consider.

Construction: Despite complaints that infrastructure projects will take too long to get going and won’t create permanent work, there’s little arguing that we need to shore up our infrastructure. As many as 640,000 construction jobs and another 300,000 supplier and manufacturing jobs could be created. I’ve long thought infrastructure projects are an excellent use of government funds during a recession. They take care of necessary projects and provide employment for a sector greatly affected by economic slowdowns.

Green Sector: Some of this is direct investment and some is in the forms of tax breaks for individuals and businesses who “go green.” I’m not a big fan of bureaucrats determining which technologies are most worth pursuing — you can lose a lot of money backing the wrong tech (ask anyone who put money into HD DVD). It’s best to let markets drive innovation. Which is why I like the tax breaks spanning a nice range of green technology. Juice the incentive for going green and then let the market determine which tech is best. In any case, if you install energy efficient windows or are a green energy scientist, go ahead and start thinking about that next vacation.

Education: If you’re a teacher or administrator and you’re state is in financial trouble, the stimulus bill should give you a sense of job security. The government is bailing out the bad decisions of your state. A short-term good thing but it does de-incentivize budgetary reform on the state level.

Energy and Utilities: We’re updating our energy grid, which is good news for anyone who works for a public utility (or wants to). Maybe it’s time to go get an electrician degree from DeVry.

Federal Government: Someone has to administer all these new programs and dispense all this money. This is great, great news for Washington, DC. Not such great news for taxpayers. We’ll be paying more over-inflated salaries for clock-watching bureaucrats and administrators. Too harsh? Sorry, living in DC for 4 years made me realize just how cushy a lot of those government jobs are compared to the kinds of work most of us have.

So, there you have it. If you want to get a chunk of that stimulus, you know what kind of job you should be looking for now.

From the Obama website – On transparency:

Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.

That is not going to happen with the stimulus bill.

On Feb 10, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution with these instructions for the stimulus bill [From the Congressional Record]“:

Mr. LEWIS of California moves to instruct the managers on the part of the House that they shall not record their approval of the final conference agreement (as such term is used in clause 12(a)(4) of rule XXII of the Rules of the House of Representatives) unless the text of such agreement has been available to the managers in an electronic, searchable, and downloadable form for at least 48 hours prior to the time described in such clause.

That didn’t happen either.

This is what actually happened:

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Send your Congressman and Senator some love.

Senator Judd Gregg’s sudden withdrawal as the Commerce Secretary nominee raises some disturbing questions. If, as reports indicate, he was soured by the stimulus bill, we have to ask whether President Obama has killed his hopes for bipartisanship before his presidency is even a month old.

By allowing the Democrats, particularly the House Democrats, to all but brush aside Republican concerns, has Obama ruined his chance to work across the aisle? Losing a cabinet nominee over the issue proves the hard feelings about the stimulus package are no small matter. Even if Gregg quit for a variety of reasons, the fact he chose to mention the stimulus has to be concerning for all of us who’ve hoped for a less partisan Washington.

For better or worse, Obama and the Democrats decided their version of the stimulus was too important to delay until a bipartisan bill could be reached. Maybe they’re right. Maybe this was an “act now or die” moment and the Republicans were putting the future of the nation at risk with their obstinacy. But, right or wrong, it looks like Obama will have to work hard on the next few big issues to give his dream of unity a fighting chance. Cut out the Republicans again and it’s going to be a long four years.

John Dickerson at Slate points out one of the unfortunate truths behind the stimulus bill: the process didn’t go as President Obama promised. All that election rhetoric about being more thoughtful and more transparent fell to the wayside as our new President chose expediency over all other considerations.

If you’re going to spend nearly $800 billion dollars, there should be some serious discussions about priorities. But there wasn’t. If you’re going to make complex compromises to get the House and the Senate to agree on final legislation, those proceedings shouldn’t be behind closed doors. But they were.

Over three weeks into the Obama administration and we’re still waiting for change to come to Washington.

Of course, Obama’s positions are not indefensible. A sense of urgency was necessary and he didn’t have a lot of time to change the secretive, backroom culture of Congress. Furthermore, one can make the argument that the debate about national priorities was held and won by Democrats over the last two elections. The stimulus bill is just the end result.

Except the stimulus bill was not the proper place for Democrats to enforce their agenda. Stimulating the economy is a “does it work or doesn’t it work” problem. Every provision in the package should have been evaluated on its stimulus merits, not on whether or not it’s a cause Democrats support. The party has plenty of time to advance its agenda through more direct means. But the party took the easiest road available and is using parts of the stimulus bill to fund a victory march for the left.

None of this is to say there aren’t many good aspects of the bill There are. But the route this bill took towards passage hardly fits with the ideals Obama promoted during the election. Sure, he has plenty of time to bring us together and is even using Lincoln’s 200th birthday to spread the message of unity once again.

But if this stimulus fails, it will fail because Obama and the Democrats chose expediency and politics-as-usual over thoughtfulness and earnest debate. They own this bill. Hopefully future legislation will pass with a more bipartisan spirit.

With the price tag going down, TIME finds that several GOPers could sign on to the bill.

Here are the names…

1. Ohio Sen. George Voinovich

2. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski

3. Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar

4. Michigan Rep. Fred Upton

5. Delaware Rep. Mike Castle

6. Pennsylvania Rep. Jim Gerlach

This obviously won’t make the legislation truly bi-partisan, but if some Republicans do switch it gives Obama a big win because it demonstrates that he actually gained some additional bi-partisan support by compromising on things like health care and school construction funding.

More as it develops…

A few days ago it was at 52%.

What was the difference? Well, it looks like it was Obama’s press conference.

From Gallup…

Ultimately it looks like Dem support has increased significantly, but do note that Independent support still represents a pretty good gauge of what the overall number is. And Republican support actually went up more than Independent.

It’ll be interesting to see if some of the other polls start to pick up, like the CBS poll that showed a 12% drop in support about a week ago…

Fifty-one percent of those questioned in a CBS News poll released Thursday evening approved of the stimulus package. That’s down 12 points from a poll taken January 11-15, the last time CBS asked the question. Thirty-nine percent opposed the plan, up 15 points from the previous poll, taken before President Barack Obama was inaugurated and before the House of Representatives passed an $819 billion stimulus package, with no Republican support, on January 28.

More as it develops…

Yes, the price tag keeps going down.

Now, I’d hope that this would make some of you happy, but I honestly can’t sort through people’s opinions about this anymore. They seem all over the place.

And, by the way, that’s not a judgement, just an observation.

Me, I just think we need to get something done. Nobody’s going to get everything they want, nor should they have ever expected to. Yes, I wish we had more infrastructure spending in there, but I understand the need for compromise in order to get this thing pushed through. Long story short, the economy needs a jolt right now and there’s only one entity that can do it.

From Bloomberg:

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) — U.S. lawmakers agreed on a $789 billion economic stimulus plan that President Barack Obama said is urgently needed to keep the country from sliding into a deeper recession.

Following weeks of debate and negotiations in Washington, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters today that negotiators reached “middle ground” and Congress may vote on the plan within days. Reid said the package would create 3.5 million jobs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 50.65 points, 0.6 percent, to 7,939.53.

“It is a jobs bill,” said Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, an architect of the compromise. “And today you might call us the jobs squad.” Nelson and other senators had insisted that the stimulus plan be less than $800 billion.

“The votes are there for passage, that is clear,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat.

The new plan is smaller than the $838 billion bill approved by the Senate yesterday and the $819 billion package passed by the House last month. Obama had said he wanted a bill on his desk by the Feb. 16 Presidents’ Day holiday.

The question now…will this bring on any more Republicans or will they continue to insist that the bill needs to be half this size and be composed mostly of tax cuts?

More as it develops…

You want private sector job growth as a result of the new bill?

This is an encouraging start:

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama says Caterpillar’s chief executive has told him the company will rehire some laid-off workers if the stimulus bill passes.

The heavy equipment maker announced more than 22,000 job cuts last month as it scales back production amid the economic slowdown.

During a visit to a transportation construction site just outside Washington in Springfield, Va., on Wednesday, Obama urged Congress to pass the bill. [...]

Obama is to speak with some of those workers on Thursday when he visits a Caterpillar manufacturing plant in Peoria, Ill.

More as it develops…

What I think is most telling from the following graph is that the tax cuts make up some of the largest pieces of the plan. In fact, the payroll tax holiday is almost bigger than all the spending for infrastructure combined.

I hope you can read these, but if you can’t you can always visit the original.

I’m more convinced than ever that the money is going towards the appropriate programs and that the claims of no pork being in here are accurate.

But hey, have at it…

As the stimulus bill works its way closer to completion and the President continues his PR push, many Americans aren’t yet sold on the plan. While a Pew Center Research Poll found 51% support the bill, those numbers have declined from 57% with the biggest drop coming from those who’ve “heard a lot” about the stimulus. That group favors the package by 49% to 41%, but they used to favor it by nearly two-thirds.

The problem is, this is a bill that is easier for most people to oppose than to support. Anyone who cares to, can easily find tens of billions of dollars in spending that seems unnecessary. It’s hard to get excited about tens of billions in superfluous spending, even if the general idea behind the bill is solid. Many Democrats don’t seem to understand that concern. Most have adopted the “all spending is good spending” mantra. If that was true, shouldn’t President Bush’s wastrel ways have been enough to stave off the recession? Clearly some spending is just waste, and that truth doesn’t change just because the party in charge changes.

With a $10 trillion national debt, we can hardly afford more waste.

Unfortunately, for those of us concerned by some of the cavalier spending of this bill, the upcoming House and Senate negotiations are unlikely to make us feel better. More likely than not, the bill will expand with the usual back scratching deals. And President Obama has made it clear he will sign just about anything which comes across his desk, so long as it’s labeled a stimulus.

I actually expect elements of the stimulus to work. I just hope the economic gain far outweighs the wastefulness. I had higher hopes for Obama and the Democrats.

The vote was 61-37, and the procedural vote yesterday made this margin all but certain.

But this doesn’t mean it’s all sewn up. There’s still some debate to be had.

Politico digs into the specifics…

—Both House and Senate bills provide close to $87 billion in increased federal aid to help states meet their healthcare bills under Medicaid. But the House bill is much more tilted in favor of larger urban states, which have experienced the greatest increase in unemployment, while the Senate bill takes a more across-the-board approach that helps rural states.

—The Senate bill is more tilted toward tax breaks, including a $15,000 homebuyers’ tax credit that has proven more costly than first advertised and seems sure to face challenges in the negotiations. Senators also used their bill to address the perennial problem of protecting middle and upper middle income families from the alternative minimum tax –an issue that House fiscal conservatives argue should be dealt with separately.

—State and local aid is a major part of both bills, but the final round of cuts imposed by Republican moderates fell heavily on these accounts, including a $40 billion cut from the a state fiscal stabilization initiate favored by Obama.

–The school construction issue remains a ticklish one since it was a cut that both Collins and Specter insisted upon in the negotiations. At the White House Monday, Obama defended the proposal, saying it would generate construction jobs and be a long term commitment to education important to the economy, In fact, the New Deal saw like-minded investments in local schools. But Collins and Specter argued that in today’s environment, it represents a new federal role in public schools and ought to be debated outside of the stimulus debate.

My thought is that the current bill will simply not change much because the cuts that happened were necessary to move this legislation forward. If the states need more money in the future, I’m sure that’ll be something the administration will address, but for now the important part is getting some forward movement.

More as it develops…

Justin posted a Gallup poll showing that “Americans Approve of Obama’s Stimulus Work” further explaining that “…there is strong disapproval for the way Republicans are handling this situation.”

I certainly agree with the latter part, as I also strongly disapprove of how the Republicans are handling the situation. They seem all too willing to tinker at the fringes of this porker, rather than take a meat axe to it, or even better, work to kill it and start over. I particularly disapprove of the two or three Republican Senators that are willing to sacrifice principle for political expediency and enable this very bad bill to pass.

Rasmussen also released a poll that, in a similar spirit, we can entitle “Americans Dubious about Obama’s Catastrophe Claims“:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 44% of Americans agree with Obama and 41% do not.

There is a huge partisan divide on the question. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Democrats agree with the president’s insistence that failure to pass a bill now means catastrophe, while 64% of Republicans do not. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 32% say Obama’s right, but 51% don’t agree (see crosstabs).

A plurality of women agree with the president while a plurality of men disagree. Those who earn less than $40,000 a year lean in Obama’s direction while those who earn $60,000 to $100,000 lean the other way. By a 47% to 40% margin, investors reject the notion that inaction will lead to catastrophe.

While the partisan divide on the question is predictable, it is particularly interesting that a large plurality of unaffiliated voters disagree with Obama that failing to pass the bill will have catastrophic consequences.

These numbers are likely to change. The president is on the campaign trail, and will be speaking to the nation tonight. We know how effective he is at both campaigning and speaking. If he wants to continue to use the fear card to sell this bill, it’ll work. He is playing to his strengths.

The economy is very bad. No doubt about it. But how does it really compare to past recessions? Justin posted a graph yesterday that was truly frightening. The graph was widely distributed across the blogosphere. You couldn’t design a graphic that would better serve to instill fear about the state of the economy. In fact, it was apparently designed to do just that, by truncating the left scale to emphasize the difference in the three compared recessions, using absolute unemployment numbers rather percentage of the workforce, and pretending that history began in 1990.

The following graph offers a somewhat broader perspective, comparing all recessions in the modern era (since 1946), expressed as an unemployment percentage.

H/T to Marginal Revolution for the graph.

It is incumbent on our Federal government to help cushion the blow for those Americans devastated by this economic contraction. That includes unemployment extensions such as are in the current stimulus bill. If there are infrastructure projects that we know we really need, like upgrading the electric transmission backbone, and repairing dangerous bridges, why not do the projects now to cushion the recession impact? I’m on board. The operative word being “need”. But to spend a trillion dollars, just for the sake of spending a trillion dollars, because some economists and politicians have an unproven dogmatic ideological belief in Keynesian theory – or – more likely – using unproven Keynesian theory as an excuse to load up a porker the likes of which we have never seen before – strikes me as insane.

But perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps tonight the President will sell me on the fear that the pending catastrophe is so great we really need to be stampeded into the largest spending bill in the history of the United States. That we really should not care that there is massive spending in this bill for projects that we do not need and will not actually stimulate the economy (translation of “the bill is not perfect“). That the impending crisis is so great, that we cannot afford to take the time to make sure our money is not wasted.

Perhaps he can convince me.

But he is going to have to scare the hell out of me.

UPDATED 14-March-10:
I linked this post from a future post, and noted the graphic had disappeared. Edited only to replace the graphic.

And there is strong disapproval for the way Republicans are handling this situation.

Not only that, confidence in Obama’s ability to move this country in a positive direction seems to have risen over the past couple weeks…

As I’ve said earlier today, Republicans are playing a dangerous electoral game by going all in on the stimulus opposition. And I can’t help but think that pumping almost a trillion into this economy will have some stimulative effect and Republicans won’t be able to demonstrate any long term damage it has done.

The way some Republicans are talking, Obama’s plan will destroy our very way of life.

Do they really think it’s smart to put such an extreme message out there?

From CNN:

Leading Republicans warned Sunday that the Obama administration’s $800 billion-plus economic stimulus effort will lead to what one called a “financial disaster.”

“Everybody on the street in America understands that,” said Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee. “This is not the right road to go. We’ll pay dearly.”

Shelby, of Alabama, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the package and efforts to shore up the struggling banking system will put the United States on “a road to financial disaster.”

But it’s not just Shelby. McCain is getting in on the gloom and doom as well…

“We need to spend money on infrastructure and on other programs that will immediately put people to work. But this is not it,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, last year’s GOP presidential nominee.

Senators reached a tentative agreement Friday on a compromise bill largely negotiated by a handful of moderate Republicans whose votes are needed to prevent a filibuster. But McCain told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the package should have been about half the size of the one now before senators, and should be balanced between tax cuts and spending.

“We’re going to amass the largest debt in the history of this country, by any measurement, and we’re going to ask our kids and grandkids to pay for it,” he said.

Newsflash…our kids and grandkids are already paying for the failed policies of the Bush administration right now. And virtually nobody I’m reading is happy that we have to put together such a massive stimulus bill to address the current crisis, but if we don’t do something to get people working and instill confidence in the system, more businesses will fail and more people will lose their jobs and guess who they’ll have to rely on at that point?

So here’s my question: what economic indicators will Republicans be pointing to in 2010 and beyond to demonstrate that Obama has wrecked the economy? Because that seems to be really the only thing they’ll be able to run on.

And if this recession continues for a couple more years, can Republicans really claim with a straight face that it was the Obama administration that caused it? Because I don’t think Americans will buy that. Well, 45% of them might, but the other 55% will remember which party presided over the collapse and which one stepped in to help stop the bleeding.

I just wonder if this is a strategy that almost guarantees a electoral backfire if the economy starts to pick up again in a year or so.

What do you think?

After failing to rally bipartisan support for the stimulus package, President Obama is taking to the road to rally the people behind his plan.

The president will visit two areas hard hit by the recession: Elkhart, Indiana, and Fort Myers, Florida. The question is, will Obama’s trip be nothing more than the kind of cheering-crowd photo op which President Bush utilized, or is Obama actually going to address the very real concerns surrounding the proposed spending initiatives? Is this an effort in marketing or leadership?

So far, neither the congressional Democrats nor Republicans have shown much desire to work together on the stimulus issue. Many Democrats have seen the bill as their opportunity to collect the spoils of war, while Republicans seem more intent on beginning the 2010 campaign than they do on helping repair the nation’s economy. President Obama, for his part, has made occasional remarks meant to encourage bipartisanship but he’s also made it clear he’s more concerned with winning this particular battle than he is in delaying matters in order to include more voices.

Right now, the bill is poised to pass the Senate’s procedural vote before reaching final passage. Then, the bill will move on to what’s expected to be a difficult negotiation with the House to iron out the final legislation. Obama’s success in rallying grassroots support for the bill could be instrumental in determining what version of the bill finally hits his desk.

Obama’s trip is his last chance to show leadership on this issue. We’ll see if he has the clout to directly influence the bill’s outcome or whether he’ll basically be doing the bidding of his party.

The partisan stimulus bill that does not actually stimulate – that started as an $800B partisan grab bag of Democratic pet projects and pork in the heavily Democratic House of Representatives – that ballooned to $900B in the heavily Democratic Senate – has been apparently been “pared back” to $827B and will pass with the help of 2 or 3 Republican senators, knocking a fully interest loaded $1.1 trillion hole in the deficit. I guess that makes it bipartisan now.

This bill represents about half of the cost of the Iraq war to date, but committed in the first month of the new administration. Impressive. What we saw with this bill is a template for what we can expect from the “post-partisan” Obama administration over the next four years. Very public bi-partisan media photo-op eyewash, but hard-core ideological partisan bills steamrolled over the opposition in Congress. Sounds familiar. And why not? As Obama says “We won”. With his 52% mandate, there is no real reason to worry unduly about the valid concerns of the other 48%.

As this bill represents the new President’s first big partisan victory, it is instructive to review how Obama’s rhetoric on the bill has evolved.

Shortly after the election, while basking in the afterglow of the historic outcome, I – like many proud Americans – watched Steve Kroft interview the new first family on 60 Minutes. I was struck by one particular statement made by the president-elect, and even highlighted it in a post at the time:

What made the statement remarkable, is that it was patently, demonstrably, unequivocally false. No such consensus existed among economists – not then – not now.

If we were still in the heat of the presidential campaign, partisans might have seen fit to call it a blatant bald-faced lie. If Bush had uttered those words, it would have been cited as yet another example of his pathological inability to tell the truth, his isolation from dissenting views, and his disdain for the “reality based community”. But a new President deserves the benefit of the doubt, so let us just call it an exaggeration for effect.

At the time I considered consulting the intertubes and dragging up quotes from a few dozen economists to contradict the assertion – But – I was feeling lazy, and as he had only been elected a few days before, had not been sworn in, and we had not even really started the honeymoon yet, I couldn’t be bothered. My only editorial comment in that post was a reminder that someone (our children and grandchildren), someday would have to pay the price for this additional debt, in either taxes, inflation, devalued currency or all of the above.

Since then, as the massive stimulus pork laden spending bill took shape, the same statement was repeated in various forms by Obama, by surrogates and by the Democratic leadership. Over the weeks and months, the statement morphed, becoming even more assertive, more arrogant, more imperious and by extension more untrue:

It became an ideological canon of Democratic dogma, chanted at every opportunity. The odd thing, is that Obama appeared to actually believe it, as if by repeating it often enough it would become true.

Last week, my procrastination paid off, as the Cato Institute published a full page ad [PDF] in the New York Times to set the record straight (and make this post a whole lot easier):

Cato also offered a very nifty little widget to promote the ad, which I’d encourage Justin to give a home in the sidebar. It’ll serve to remind him that there are plenty of “smart economists” who do not subscribe to failed Keynesian ideological dogma. Towards the end of his life, even Keynes became skeptical of this kind of Keynesian stimulus.

I was encouraged when public support for the bill fell below 37%. Rational arguments by smart people (even economists) were raised in opposition to this bill. Examples include: Megan McArdle (also here), with Sully chiming in (but still apparently unable to resolve his claimed conservative principles with his continuing P.D.S. affliction), Steve Verdon, Greg Mankiw and others.

Encouraging, but ultimately, the congressional process was a lot of Kabuki theater. After applying a little lipstick, this pig of a bill will now pass (H/T to Q&O for the graphic).

Nick Gillespie hit the nail on the head:

One thing has changed. President Obama stopped asserting that there is no credible opposition since Cato published that ad. He has a different message now.

In Wednesday’s briefing with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Obama’s tough sounding but ultimately meaningless eyewash on limiting Wall Street executive compensation got most of the press. The real message was this quote:

A video of the entire 10 minute event from the White House can be found here. The quote above occurs at 4:42.

The portion of Obama’s comments not related to executive pay was repackaged and regurgitated into a Washington Post op-ed on Thursday – “The Action America Needs”. Compare this quote from the op-ed to his White House comments Wednesday:

Same old stuff. Pay no attention to the content (massive pork) in the bill. Pay no attention to the fact that it will not solve the root problem and will at best delay a day of reckoning. Pay no attention that it will add a trillion dollars of debt that we do not have and will have to borrow from the Chinese or tax from Americans or devalue the currency to repay. Just pass it, because an economic fear-mongering President says it should be pass.

The point: Since there is no more pretense that credible informed opposition to this insane spending plan does not exist, we have a new message – Something like this…

My overwhelming 52% electoral mandate means that Americans want to flush another trillion dollars that we don’t have down the toilet. Because I say so.

Welcome to the post-partisan Obama era.

Did we learn nothing from the hastily passed $700 Billion Wall Street bailout last year? You remember – when we witnessed the rampant stupidity of a craven congress rolling over to an executive demand for fast action on the basis of economic fear mongering – and as a result – were treated to the spectacle of our representatives wasting massive amounts of taxpayer resources without really understanding what they were passing or having any idea where the money will go or how it will be used.

No need to answer the question. We learned nothing. The exact same thing just happened on the floor of the Senate.

Pucker up.

^{x-posted from “Divided We Stand United We Fall“}