US 'Economic Stimulus' Budget Review

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Don't forget the disturbingly protectionist, "Buy American" provisions:Let's hope that gets let on the cutting room floor in the final version of the bill.

I thought Obama wanted to redo FDR's approach, not that of Hoover?

[Spino]

The abominable snowjob bill just passed the Senate, 61 to 37. Three Republicans voted for it; Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe (both from Maine) and Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania).

[Don Corleone]

The abominable snowjob bill just passed the Senate, 61 to 37. Three Republicans voted for it; Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe (both from Maine) and Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania).

I think Maine gets the highest return on the stimulus bill, in terms of money in-money out. Good for them. Senators represent their states, not their national party.

As for Specter, I think the time has come to refuse him the right to caucus with with the party. He's more loyal to the Democatic party, and has been for at least the past decade, than at least half the Democratic senate caucus. If he's unwilling to make the letter change (R-> D), perhaps Senator McConnell should do it for him.

[drone]

As for Specter, I think the time has come to refuse him the right to caucus with with the party. He's more loyal to the Democatic party, and has been for at least the past decade, than at least half the Democratic senate caucus. If he's unwilling to make the letter change (R-> D), perhaps Senator McConnell should do it for him.

For what it's worth, here is Specter's justification for his vote.

I'm still a little surprised that the bill is almost $20B more than the House's version, I would have thought the opposition could have carved out a little more of the pork. So if the House approves $819B, and the Senate approves $838B, any bets on the final bill? I'm guessing a nice compromise at $850B.

[Strike For The South]

Can we call it a spending package instead of a stimulus package? I would like to have the people who are robbing me to at lease be honest. I will put up with a liar or a thief but not both.

[Don Corleone]

Can we call it a spending package instead of a stimulus package? I would like to have the people who are robbing me to at lease be honest. I will put up with a liar or a thief but not both.

How about if we call it the Health Care reform and government oversight of your your health care bill?

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

[Crazed Rabbit]

How about if we call it the Health Care reform and government oversight of your your health care bill?

A-hem.

Clearly, LD knows no political boundaries.

CR

[Don Corleone]

A-hem.

Clearly, LD knows no political boundaries.

CR

Sorry.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

For what it's worth, here is Specter's justification for his vote.

I'm still a little surprised that the bill is almost $20B more than the House's version, I would have thought the opposition could have carved out a little more of the pork. So if the House approves $819B, and the Senate approves $838B, any bets on the final bill? I'm guessing a nice compromise at $850B.

Actually, CBO figures suggest that a final tag for the House bill would be nearer $1.3T, whereas the Senat's will finish closer to $1.0T. However, I would not bet against the Conference process jacking it up a good bit. The three GOP Senators not only have to be less than pleased about the conference bill, but less than pleased enough to stage a unanimous filibuster effort with the rest of the GOP -- a tougher bet.

[drone]

I guess that's what I get for looking at the fully spun press releases instead of the CBO.

One ray of responsibility sunshine, the House leadership has decided to move forward with a bill to suspend their COLA raises for 2010. Tightening of the belt perhaps?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Of course, the uninformed cynic in me is suspicious that the COLA "raise" is actually a salary adjustment based on the Labor department stats, and the House fears they may actually be looking at a pay cut with the recession in full swing. God forbid that that should happen! Anyone familiar with the algorithm they use to determine the adjustment?

[Xiahou]

The Economist has also chimed in on the 'Buy American' provision in the stimulus. (They don't like it.)

Once again, the task of saving the world economy falls to America. Mr Obama must show that he is ready for it. If he is, he should kill any “Buy American” provisions. If he isn’t, America and the rest of the world are in deep trouble.

[Proletariat]

Forget the chump change pork in this bill, the Buy American thing is the scariest part of this bill, imo.

[seireikhaan]

I thought Obama wanted to redo FDR's approach, not that of Hoover?

It appears this is more of the House's work(not surprising given who leads it :). However, I really wish Obama would make a more concerted effort to nix this thing in the bud. I really can't stand these "buy *insert country*" things.

[Husar]

How about, when you talk of final costs, you factor in the interest that needs to be paid until the resulting national debt has been paid off?

[LittleGrizzly]

I think almost every economist agree's protectionism is bad... but when did something like expert opinion ever bother politicians...

[Lemur]

One of National Review's (and the CATO Institutes') pet economists gets busted.

“I think about the stimulus as an economist but I feel it as a father. Barack Obama is destroying my daughter's future. It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs. That’s how I feel, now back to how I think.” [...]

Now, my first reaction was to sneer at the NRO blogger who, after 8 years of tax cut induced deficits that managed to double the national debt, has suddenly experienced a Damascene conversion and now believes that deficits are, indeed bad. I was going to post a note to that effect on this blog, but point out that as far as this fellow Arnold Kling is concerned, I just don't know enough about him to say whether or not he too is a convenient convert to the religion of balanced budgets.

But then I did a little googling and stumbled upon this gem on arnoldkling.com:

[...] "In conclusion, I believe that a large, temporary revenue-sharing program would be a good approach for fighting a recession. This form of fiscal stimulus would quickly find its way into the economy. Unfortunately, I suspect that there is little chance of any Keynes getting through to Bush."

So this CATO Institute economist who depicts Barack Obama's simulus plan as akin to a gang of thugs ransacking his house, and who worries for his daughter's future, is the same guy who back in 2000 was urging Bush to go on a Keynsian spending spree?

[Vladimir]

Hi guys :wave: . I know I'm late.

Does anyone notice a disturbing trend? The more recent the recession, the longer the recovery. From these pretties I'm not very concerned about this recession. I am concerned that it appears the economy is less robust than ever before.

[LittleGrizzly]

Possibly just reading too much into it... or looking at it the wrong way. For example the feb '01 recession probably wasn't helped by 9/11...

A more positive way to look at it would be the recent recessions seem to involve less of a downturn, amd the dec'07 one is one of the shortest recessions on there...

[Don Corleone]

I'd like to shift gears for a moment and discuss the 2nd half of the financial bailout that Tim Geithner announed yesterday.

So, after weeks of hearing we need the money, but we need more oversight, more clarity... Barney Frank promising he's going to watch every nickel personally... he goes up to the Hill and... pulls a Paulson "Just give me the money... we need it and I can't tell you yet where it's going".

A couple of I think common sense questions...

-Everyone and his brother knows Geithner is putting together a bad bank. Why doesn't he just come out and say it? It can't be worse than the speculation.

-Why isn't Hank Paulson in jail? As far as I can tell, he told everyone he understood their concerns but would do what was necessary to keep the public plugged in. He then turned around and handed out $350B to his buddies at Citbank, Morgan Stanley and the like... I guess the CEO of Lehman Brothers wasn't one of Hank's buddies.

-Why does anyone have any hope that there will be more oversight on Treasury this time around? I'm not going to argue that it was the Bush Treasury department that stole $350 billion, it was. But wasn't Barney Frank chairman of the House Financial Services comittee last year? Wasn't he tasked with oversight of Paulson, especially on where TARP was going? Is there any reason to believe he's going to be more intrusive, more regulatory on the a Treasury Secretary that's part of a Democratic administration?

It just doesn't make any sense on any of this. Hank Paulson stole $350B. Tim Geithner is acting as though he expects the right to do the same. And Barney Frank is standing in the town square, pompously proclaiming "Twust me.. this time I'll get it wight"

[Don Corleone]

P.S. Wall Street was so impressed with Mr. Geithner's proverbial 'turd on the floor', indices dropped over 5% yesterday on the news, on broad concerns (i.e. across all sectors).

[Crazed Rabbit]

One of National Review's (and the CATO Institutes') pet economists gets busted.

Hmm, its not quite so simple. The economist said;

Kling says this is a big bill, but not a big stimulus. There is nothing timely, targeted, or temporary about it. It is a simple transfer of money from one set of people to favored interest groups of the Democratic Party.

Which is a very good point; the bill is not what even a Keynesian economist would find ideal - it has long term spending, a whole bunch of pork ($300MM for green golf carts!), etc.

So wanting Keynesian spending back in 2000 and not liking this bill because it adds a huge debt and isn't that keynesian isn't hypocritical.

CR

[Seamus Fermanagh]

-Why isn't Hank Paulson in jail? As far as I can tell, he told everyone he understood their concerns but would do what was necessary to keep the public plugged in. He then turned around and handed out $350B to his buddies at Citbank, Morgan Stanley and the like... I guess the CEO of Lehman Brothers wasn't one of Hank's buddies.

Paulson got Congress to pass, and the President to sign, a bill giving him virtually unlimited authority to do whatever he wanted with the money short of putting it, directly at least, into his own retirement account. When he changed the ostensible plan, 15 minutes after receiving the money, he was met with a chorus of "Hey, wait a minute"'s to which he responded, "It's okay, I know better." Their response to this wondrous approach was to say, "okay." They then did what they really wanted which was to shelve it and get back to their districts for the October races. There is no jail option unless you indict at least 536 co-conspirators.

-Why does anyone have any hope that there will be more oversight on Treasury this time around? I'm not going to argue that it was the Bush Treasury department that stole $350 billion, it was. But wasn't Barney Frank chairman of the House Financial Services comittee last year? Wasn't he tasked with oversight of Paulson, especially on where TARP was going? Is there any reason to believe he's going to be more intrusive, more regulatory on the a Treasury Secretary that's part of a Democratic administration?

Now these are good "questions." Not really questions of course, as you already know the answers.

[drone]

The Democratic leadership in Congress needs to be changed, a revolt within the party is needed to get more competent leadership in place. Pelosi may have been a good minority leader, but she does not have the ability to run the show. I knew as soon as Bush asked for "$700B, no oversight, immediately to avert disaster, disagree and you're a terrorist", it was a bad idea, he had used this tactic several times before. Yet they still caved, even when they had control. Deja vu.

The bankers get to face Congress today, should make for a good dog and pony show, with much vitriol from the lawmakers to show their constituents they are outraged. I'd give anything for the bankers to grill back why the TARP funds were not legislated with oversight in the first place. The look on Barney's face would be priceless.

[Don Corleone]

Judd Gregg;
Jeanne Shaheen;
Paul Hodes;
and Carol Shea-Porter

are teh SUCK as a congressional delegation. . Utter I mean, they have their head up their . They really, really suck. They're so inept and lazy, it should be criminal. We should impeach all 4 of them.

Want to know what portion of the ~$1 Trillion, that's trillion with a "T" is going to New Hampshire? 10 billion? 1 billion? 100 million? Try ZERO!!! John Lynch announced that he had requested 300 million in state medicaid/medicare payments as part of the stimulus, and 200million in infrastructure improvements. I'm not certain, but I believe both technically are unfunded mandates, so it's not like Congress didn't force NH to spend the money in the first place. And this morning, on the news, I heard that Lynch will not be entering any federal stimulus money into the expected revenue, as none of what he requested was approved. NONE!

I can understand Gregg, being out in the wilderness, not being able to represent... but our Democrats are so abysmal at representing our state, it's criminal. Snowe and Collins, who represent Maine of all places, are bringing home about 15billion. NH? Not one penny. ARRRRGGGGGH!!!!! (I'm having a Howard Dean moment...)

[Spino]

Hi guys :wave: . I know I'm late.

Does anyone notice a disturbing trend? The more recent the recession, the longer the recovery. From these pretties I'm not very concerned about this recession. I am concerned that it appears the economy is less robust than ever before.

I ain't too edyookated on these matters but could this trend be linked to the decline of our industry and overall exports? With each passing year we make less and less 'stuff' and (to my limited knowledge) fewer nations consume materials and/or food from the US of A. Might I venture forth the idea that a nation that imports more than it exports is more susceptible to a prolonged recession/depression than one which exports more than it imports?

Might a service oriented economy be more prone to the pitfalls of a recession/depression than an industry oriented one?

Just a thought, don't take it too seriously as I'm only on my first cup of coffee...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Judd Gregg;
Jeanne Shaheen;
Paul Hodes;
and Carol Shea-Porter

are teh SUCK as a congressional delegation. . Utter I mean, they have their head up their . They really, really suck. They're so inept and lazy, it should be criminal. We should impeach all 4 of them.
...specifics.... ARRRRGGGGGH!!!!! (I'm having a Howard Dean moment...)

Stop sugar-coating things Don, tell us what your really feel.

[Ironside]

I ain't too edyookated on these matters but could this trend be linked to the decline of our industry and overall exports? With each passing year we make less and less 'stuff' and (to my limited knowledge) fewer nations consume materials and/or food from the US of A. Might I venture forth the idea that a nation that imports more than it exports is more susceptible to a prolonged recession/depression than one which exports more than it imports?

Might a service oriented economy be more prone to the pitfalls of a recession/depression than an industry oriented one?

Just a thought, don't take it too seriously as I'm only on my first cup of coffee...

Interesting enough I was thinking of something simular but from a very different angle. To put it short, the current economic system requires eternal growth, something that by it's very nature is impossible. Currently there's been several signs, for years, indicating that the current system is close to its end in the western world and it's fairly safe to bet that the end will be unstable, with events simular to the current recession (or I'm off with 50+ years).

And then you suggest that the larger focus on the service sector, something that is in the current market's very nature, that causes deeper recessions...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Well for me they are linked, as both things are simply to evolution of the market, to its end.

Got absolutly not idea what would replace the current system though.

Spino, are you sure that the industrial production actually drops in the US and not just the employment in the industrial sector?

[Spino]

Interesting enough I was thinking of something simular but from a very different angle. To put it short, the current economic system requires eternal growth, something that by it's very nature is impossible. Currently there's been several signs, for years, indicating that the current system is close to its end in the western world and it's fairly safe to bet that the end will be unstable, with events simular to the current recession (or I'm off with 50+ years).

And then you suggest that the larger focus on the service sector, something that is in the current market's very nature, that causes deeper recessions...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Well for me they are linked, as both things are simply to evolution of the market, to its end.

Got absolutly not idea what would replace the current system though.

Well industry or not first and foremost an overhaul of our monetary policy is way overdue. Relying on a system that allows banks to generate ridiculous amounts of money vis a vis credit which ultimately places the entire system deeply into debt seems to defy all reason. I fail to see how a system is sustainable. So long as such a system is allowed to continue unabated it will only encourage foolishness and irresponsible practices (i.e. the sub-prime market) to take root to the detriment of the entire system. I suppose this is why the gold standard argument often comes up in these types of conversations, it deals with basing currency on something more than guarantees based on projected growth. It seems to me if your your currency/credit is based on nothing but on an empty guarantee of sustainable growth then incompetence combined with lack of confidence in the entities generating such credit can and will routinely wreak havoc. But my grasp of these matters is entirely superficial and based on the few articles and documentaries I've bothered to check out. I guess we'll see what happens once the dust settles.

Here's another question. What would happen to the existing system (and affected currencies) if someone else offered a more reliable and sustainable alternative during a global economic crisis? Meaning what would happen if someone decided to 'cheat' and take a dramatic step outside the widely accepted rules of the game? It seems to me that the current system works only because everyone seems to buy into the game. What would happen if some nation were to break ranks and back its currency with something more than an empty guarantee based on projections? I'm not necessarily talking about a gold standard but simply an alternative to the widely accepted norm.

Spino, are you sure that the industrial production actually drops in the US and not just the employment in the industrial sector?

Well I'm not really sure which is why I put that question out there to begin with. I suppose my problem is in our dependence on industries that produce 'nothing' (i.e. service industries) versus those that produce 'something' (i.e. tangible items that can be used, rented, sold or scrapped/recycled). Based purely on my observations it is painfully apparent that all but a handful of consumer goods are made in the USA. If I were to take a tally of everything in my home I'll wager all but the raw materials used to make my home and a smattering of goods I've bought were made here in the US. It seems like everything I wear, watch, use, etc. (along with a growing percentage of the things I eat), are manufactured or produced outside the USA.

[Don Corleone]

So, I'm very, very confused. The White House and House & Senate majorities promised a new era of openness and inclusion for citizens in the government process.

So, could somebody explain to me why the compromise language was reached on Wednesday, but it was only posted to the Speaker's website last night at 11:30 PM Eastern, when the vote is schedule for 9AM this morning?

Could somebody explain to me why the House staff took the time to print a computer file out and scan it in, rather than posting the electronic version of the document? It couldn't possibly be so that we can't parse the document or use search terms, could it?

What Nancy Pelosi hoped you'd sleep through...

Could somebody explain to me why only Democrats were allowed to be on the bi-cameral compromise committee? Forget about the average citizens, even the 3 Senate Republicans that voted for the Stimulus didn't get to see it until close to midnight last night and have to vote on it at 9AM.

Does all of this sound open and inclusive to anyone else?

[drone]

Didn't you hear? It's got to be on Obama's desk by Monday morning. Letting the GOP in on the discussion might threaten that.

That link is either down or slowed to a crawl. Anybody know what the software package used to generate the document was? They may have printed and scanned it to prevent the markups from being seen, I think that has bit them before.