Biden: White House Wanted Bigger Stimulus; Republicans Howl Immediately (VIDEO)

Vice-President Joseph Biden said on Sunday that the administration understood the need to pass a larger stimulus package upon entering office but chose to scale down their ambitions in order to win GOP votes.

Appearing on ABC's "This Week," Biden endorsed the viewpoint held by Keynesian economists like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (who he referenced by name), acknowledging that the stimulus passed was likely too small. But, he added, there would have been no package at all had it not been made smaller and, subsequently, more palatable to moderate Republicans.

"There was a reality," Biden told host Jake Tapper. "In order to get what we got passed, we had to find Republican votes. And we found three. And we finally got it passed."

"I think it would have been bigger [if not for that]," he added. "I think it would have been bigger. In fact, what we offered was slightly bigger than that. But the truth of the matter is that the recovery package, everybody's talking about it [like] it's over. The truth is now, we're spending more now this summer than we -- I'm calling this ... the summer of recovery."

The notion that the stimulus was, in all likelihood, too small for the crisis it was supposed to mend is hardly controversial among sober-minded political and economic observers. The White House, after all, continues to press Congress for additional (marginal) stimulus packages -- underscoring what the president clearly feels is an additional need to jolt the economy.

But Biden's comments are already being jumped on by Republican strategists, who have spent the past year ridiculing the stimulus as a massive, wasted, $800 billion check. Kevin Madden, a longtime consultant and confidant of Mitt Romney, predicted television ads attacking the White House for Biden's remark.

As for the argument that the stimulus (even undersized) hasn't had its desired effect, Biden cast blame on a miscommunication campaign that has kept the public in the dark.

"People don't know a lot of what's going on in the Recovery Act," Biden said. "Understandably, because there has been so much stuff that has been flowing our way."

WATCH

Comments

[John Proleapposter]

10:58 AM on 07/21/2010

maybe it work. just like Mortgage Refinancing Stimulus. maybe..

[SanDiegoSlim]

11:08 PM on 07/19/2010

Quick, we need more money because our apporval rating is in the toilet, HCR is already gonna cost us way more than what we told you...oh and Congress is gona need a raise soon and we have a bunch more government employees to hire to pad the numbers...errr wait I mean we care about Main St. get ready for the tax bat.

[murphysgirl]

08:39 PM on 07/19/2010

The stimulus bill is working, but the MSM has done a poor job reporting the jobs that were saved and the construction projects that have created jobs.

[elimenez]

07:25 PM on 07/19/2010

Now you tell us...

[carcol]

05:05 PM on 07/19/2010

So did Krugman and several others want a bigger stimulus.Als a part of the stimulus was to help the states maintain services:firemen,policemen and teachers.

[Please-Play-Fair]

01:50 PM on 07/19/2010

Because more spending is going to build a bigger debt and solve nothing. No thanks.

[BlackTantalus]

04:14 PM on 07/19/2010

Spending fuels the economy. Not spending deepens George W. Bush's New Great Depression. My portfolio bottomed out in December 2008, after eight years of Republican deregulation and sweetheart deals with energy entities. Although my portfolio is slowly, haltingly, recovering, I don't expect to ever see a balance as robust as it was when Bill Clinton left office. Thanks Republicans, for your philosophy of a billion dollars a day for war, but not one cent for America.

[Please-Play-Fair]

07:02 PM on 07/19/2010

Well ... we can agree that Bush should have asked Americans to suck it up and pay a war tax at the time we entered Iraq. Americans would have done it. The wars have been a total debacle.

We can agree to disagree on the way to go about spending and trying to recover the economy.

[shaitan]

01:21 PM on 07/19/2010

Why not cut off the $30 billion given to Israel without any conditions and use that for the unemployed?
Then cut off $400 billion of the DOD budget--that is the estimated pork/waste in that budget. We need enough non-dual citizens committed to US interests rather than all these Congress people who love spending money we don't have for Israel, tax cuts for the rich and Wars but hate spending it at home to benefit our own needy folks.

[Janine547]

01:12 PM on 07/19/2010

Obama may think he's an intelligent guy, but unfortunately for the rest of us he's also an ideologue, which means he's going to go ahead and try to raise taxes during a recession. In the last couple of days, I've seen proposals floated to impose a 4% surtax on "high income" earners and a 3% national sales tax to pay for health care. Obama and his people are obviously ignorant to the fact that peoples' behavior changes in response to negative incentives. Punish work and the creation of wealth, and you get less of it. Why is it so difficult for these people to figure out?

[Bike Commuter]

02:45 PM on 07/19/2010

Apparently you think that you are an intelligent person, but unfortunately for the rest of us, you are an ideologue who doesn't pay attention to history.

You are pushing the myth of "punish wealth and you get less work". It is not backed up by our history. Yours is the "understanding" of someone who has bought into a simplistic view that is designed to be understood by third graders.

In reality, there needs to be a far greater than 4% increase on very high earners. That is because those high earners get the money and keep it. They don't invest it back into the economy. Our economy has always worked best when the gap between rich and poor is managable and the poor and middle class make enough to drive the economy. When you put the more money in the hands of the rich, you marginalize the other groups and ruin the economy.

Historically, the most best economic conditions have occurred when the top marginal tax rate (taxes on the richest) is highest.

[Mermaids daddyo]

01:06 PM on 07/19/2010

The whole Obama white house is a communication failure.

[BlackTantalus]

04:22 PM on 07/19/2010

. . . as opposed to the Bush White House, which was a national failure that brought economic disaster; waged war on people who never attacked, invaded or threated the nation; a boon to the energy cartels, a devaluation of the Bill of Rights; and an assualt on the liberties of all Americans.

[scorpioleidy]

11:14 AM on 07/19/2010

And we absolutely needed a bigger stimulus - all the top economists said so! But the scared-@$$ed DINOs in our party (aka blue dogs) didn't have the spine to take full advantage of our congress majorities and push it through, instead of siding with the party of he11 no. The country's on track now ... but we could've been further along in the recovery process. Which is exactly why I'm voting for four more years for the Harvard grad & his sidekick! : )

[rel77]

10:57 AM on 07/19/2010

All this arguing over whether or not the stimulus bill worked is beside the point, isn't it? Let's look at some facts: The country lost 5.1 million jobs from Jan 2008 to March 2009. The Stimulus passed in Feb '09. By the end of 2009 job losses effectively stopped, and for 2010 we've seen some growth but not really enough to move the needle one way or another. That is what the White House and people like Geithner said would happen (even though they underestimated how bad job losses would be in '09), that losses would stop by late 2009. So TARP and the Stimulus, two big programs in early 2009, worked at what they were supposed to do, which was stop job losses. Now we need to put that argument behind us and move to "how do we create jobs now?" But first I think we should give the Administration some credit for stopping the bleeding that was so bad when they took office. It was never meant to "cure" the economy, it was a triage, ER type situation. BTW, $400 billion of the stimulus is scheduled to be spent this year, so we ought to wait till early/mid 2011 if we really want to judge how effective the stimulus was.

[rocknrollinhoneybadger]

11:00 AM on 07/19/2010

Correction - The WH said that this would keep unemployment under 8%. Clearly we are beyond that point now.

[rel77]

11:02 AM on 07/19/2010

"they underestimated how bad job losses would be in '09". The next time you want to comment, please read what I wrote.

[WhitneyKyle]

11:59 AM on 07/19/2010

You missed the point he clearly made. No one knew how great the job loss would be and were only able to guesstimate. To get conservative votes, they had to low ball it. Imagine if the Republicans had gone along with the experts and a more correct guess had been used?
Bush's numbers never panned out and for months the papers were reporting corrections every year he was in office. Guesstimating numbers is a political game. You make no points in playing the 8% against any other number you think they should have thrown around.

[Doug Compagner]

10:47 AM on 07/19/2010

How will this be paid for? Maybe the same way they paid for the Dr. fix.

[Chris3131]

10:43 AM on 07/19/2010

Is this his half-handed way of attempting to explain why it failed?

[rocknrollinhoneybadger]

10:54 AM on 07/19/2010

Yes. The American people know this failed. Obama has been going around the country touting what an incredible success this has been, and all the while the unemployment line keeps growing.

[BlackTantalus]

04:25 PM on 07/19/2010

. . . and you may thank George W. Bush. While you are at it, thank the corporations that moved American jobs to foreign governments, but still expect Americans to fund their tax breaks.

[smiththomas]

10:24 AM on 07/19/2010

What kind of tax cuts. Are you saying 300 billion was given to the private sector businesses. I don't think so.

[rel77]

11:06 AM on 07/19/2010

$288 billion in tax cuts.
$224 billion in extending unemployment, education and health care.
$275 in job creation.
$787 billion total.

[barkrudedog69]

10:18 AM on 07/19/2010

Standford Economics must be part of the campaign to keep people in the dark with the report and candid discussions they had with the House just this month....

The conclusion was the stimulus was a failure and that government spending needed to be cut.

[daveny]

11:52 AM on 07/19/2010

This "Standford" place intrigues me, much like all places that aren't even spelled correctly by the people looking to score cheap points with their name.