The Big Point being lost in all the back and forth over the stimulus plan's flaws is this: there is no such thing as a perfect stimulus.
First, we don't really know what will work best, and second, no giant bill like this gets through Congress without massive amounts of unattractive stuff. But with consumer demand collapsing and business retrenching, government is the only entity that can lift demand in ways that avert a self-reinforcing downward spiral.
We need to throw lots of spaghetti against the wall, and fast -- and continue to throw lots of spaghetti against the wall for at least a few years. This is not a case against trying to make the spaghetti tossing as smart as we can -- it's just an acknowledgment that we're unlikely to know what's really best and the most important thing is the volume and speed of the spaghetti we start tossing. And yes, once we get things stabilized, we'll have to come back and figure out a pasta withdrawal diet (i.e. long term budget reform, slowing the growth of health care costs, raising taxes, etc). But that will be a comparatively good problem to have once we're past this mess.
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Deal announced on emergency stimulus plan
WASHINGTON — With job losses soaring nationwide, Senate Democrats reached agreement with a small group of Republicans Friday night on an economic stimulus measure at...
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Obama Admin To Unveil New Rescue Plan For Banks
After weeks of internal debate, the Obama administration has settled on a plan to inject billions of dollars in fresh capital into banks and entice...
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List Of What Got Cut From The Stimulus Bill
A coalition of Democrats and some Republicans reached a compromise that trimmed billions in spending from an earlier version of the Senate economic stimulus bill....
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Stimulus, Yes; Bank Bailout II, No
If Obama does his job he will mobilize public opinion and isolate Republicans who would rather sink the economy than give a Democratic president legislative success.
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Palin's Facebook Page: Opposes Obama's Stimulus Plan
We learn on Facebook that Palin has "serious concerns" with Obama's stimulus package. Say what?
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Just imagine: What if McCain Had Won the Election and Obama had Shafted him During the Stimulus Debate?
Um, are McCain's feelings after losing an election the big question on people's minds in the nation? I think the stimulus package is the focus of the country right now, don't you?
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Where's Ross Perot When You Need Him?
I'm ready for a little old fashioned Ross Perot specification of the expected outcomes of the stimulus package. This is what we call in education a "teachable moment."
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Our Twin Crises
That we are unable to manage a functioning economy or deal with climate change because rapacious Wall Street traders have disproportionate political clout is a measure of our political dysfunction.
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Steele Crazy After All This Year
We are witnessing, not so much the collapse of the Republican Party, as its slide into insanity. What was the GOP's great accomplishment last week? A show of "unity" enough to block the first stimulus package.
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Patriotic Extortion
Imagine if the Democrats had not pre-capitulated to the Republicans on the stimulus bill. Imagine if they had forced the Republicans to actually mount a filibuster.
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Oh, About That "End" of the Obama Honeymoon ...
Where Obama may have made a mistake is in being too substantively accommodating with people who are basically not going to support him except in the event of an extraterrestrial invasion.
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Command and Control?
At a time when the country is virtually pleading with him to exert command and control, he has yielded that role to congressional partisans that the public doesn't quite know and almost certainly doesn't trust.
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House vs. Senate Stimulus Bills
Some highlights: The House version would spend $60 billion more on education -- the Senate version adds more than $100 billion for tax cuts to individuals and families.
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Delusional or Just Cynical?
A good example of the "frothing at the mouth" reaction to the stimulus plan is a blog penned by Jonathan Tobin, Executive Editor of Commentary.
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Change vs. Bipartisanship: What Happens When You Throw a Bipartisan Party and Half the Guest List Stays Home?
The problem with a message of bipartisanship is that it makes it very difficult to tell the story of why things are so bad that we need dramatic change.
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Stimulating
As muddled as this economic stage may be -- and all major measures taken in crisis usually are -- it is born of the drive to reconstruct and not profiteer, and that alone is progress to applaud.
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Obama: Use This And the Jobs Bill Will Pass With a 100 Vote Margin
Our best salesman is Obama. There is no house or senate member who this president cannot roll over.
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Our Phone Calls Are Working, Don't Let Up!
If representatives know that's what their constituents want, they will be both more inclined to keep that critical public investment from the House bill, and act with the speed.
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Obama Undermines Jobs Mandate For the Sake of Bipartisanship
Roosevelt had the New Deal, Kennedy had the New Frontier, Johnson had the Great Society, and Obama has...the stimulus plan. An abstract goal with fungible components that valued process above all else.
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Republicans Say They'd Support the "Right" Stimulus Bill, But Stimulus for Them Is Only More Tax Cuts
If you look closely at what the Republicans are saying, this isn't a debate on the merits of this stimulus legislation, but rather another round of policy battles fought during last year's campaign.
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Loading comments… 
It is not about letting people deep in debt (or companies, for that matter) borrow more money they can't afford.
Credit has gotten so tight that credit-wor
The spread between US Treasuries and 30-year Prime (not stinky subprime) mortgages is the widest it has been in decades. People who might buy homes where rates should be right now if lending was normal (rates would be in the low 4%'s), aren't seeing those low rates. If they did, it would go a long way to stop the falling real estate market.
On top of the wide spreads between where prime mortgage securities and treasuries are trading, mortgage bankers in the PRIME business are having a horrible time borrowing money to make new mortgages. To make the most of their limited capacity, they do fewer loans at higher fees. Consumers lose.
Because of the crumbling securitiza
Just a few examples..
I'd like to see your thoughts on this site more often sir. Like President Obama, your are an academic stud. There is a depth and scope to your thinking that is both impressive and refreshing
I love your previous book "The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America's Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservati
When the stimulus rhetoric dies down, and Obama turns to education, let's hope he implements some of your approaches
TARP started out as 3 pages and $700B, and ended up at 450 pages and > $800B and fixed nothing it was supposed to fix, despite the jumping up and down that the economy would have been wiped out and we'd all be using feminine hygiene products for currency.
So now it's happening again, and each iteration takes OUT more good stuff, like expanding/
Just hiring people to dig holes and fill them up again will stimulate the economy, but I think we can do something useful.
And whatever happened to raising taxes on the wealthy? That even the wealthy agreed to and voted for BHO at a higher rate?? A small tax increase would fix the deficit and pay for a lot of things we all agree we need, like infrastruc
One thing we need to learn from the New Deal is that we have to be willing to experiment
First, maybe we should step back and go through it for more than a week before jamming it through.
Second, how sad is it that wasteful sepnding has become expected and normal?
But the point is that this economic crisis touches every one but the very wealthy. Recently someone showed me the $30,000 price tag for a decorative item going into a child's room. Obviously some of us are immune to the current economic situation.
If we throw the pasta at the wall, we know the consequenc
People with a modest nest egg left after this stock market debacle have the toughest call to make on this stimulus plan. If we don't throw the pasta there is little chance to have a growing economy and a means to recoup capital. If we do throw it, we will be devaluing our currency and our savings.
Makes you want to ask, how did we get into this mess?
when we could and should of turned this economy around before the wars and corporate corruption
alas, the Fed will end up buying the treasuries
Tax cuts don't help anyone who isn't working. Raising taxes on the middle class helps no one. People who can have no consern for the poor , the unemployed and the losers in the recent bank meltdown aren't the moral Christians they claim to be. God does not give special status in heaven to the wealthy, those who step on others to gain that wealth and those who vindictive vipers who can't admit they were wrong. War is a money pit that does not expand economies - it devours them.
I am so fed up with the sanctimoni
"tender", "al dente","mm
Clearly, the Republican
Does macaroni have a place here? Rotini? Fettuccini
Should marinara be considered somehow? Or is that too "red"? What about pesto? Or is that too "green"?
White flour? Whole Wheat? Gluten-Fre
Contemplat
Please define "spaghetti