Stimulus II: Revenge of the Rotten Economy

Megan McArdle hammers Obama's obvious cyncisim in sending a jobs bill to Congress that has absolutely no chance of passing either the House or Senate...

If the president were serious about providing stimulus, he would pay attention to the work of his old CEA chair, and pay for the jobs bill by decreasing the growth rate of something-or-other in the future by 0.2%. This is also what he would do if he were serious about getting any part of it through Congress. Instead he is apparently sending them a less-stimulative bill designed to be maximally embarrassing to the GOP--which by definition means minimally politically viable.


You can say that Obama has no choice, because the GOP is just so damn obstructive that they won't pass anything anyway. As it happens, I disagree--I don't think that he could have gotten the whole thing through, but the GOP would probably have given him a few pieces to avoid looking like total jerks, and while that might not have done too much for Obama's re-election chances, it probably would have meant a lot to the schmoes trying to make their mortgage payments in a tough economy.


But say it's true. If it is, I really wish that Obama hadn't wasted my Thursday evening, and that of 31 million other Americans, listening to a jobs plan that was only designed to produce one job--a second term for Barack Obama. I mean, I don't blame him, exactly. But I get a little pang when I realize that I could just as well have spent that time bleaching the grout in the master bath.

Ouch. And keep in mind that McArdle's prone to be sympathetic to Obama.  Keep in mind, the tax hikes proposed here couldn't pass a fully Democratic Congress in 2009 when originally proposed as a financing mechanism for Obamacare.  At this point, you have to start to wonder if the Obama Administration believes the magic bullet solution for every economic problem is a tax increase on some group they define as rich.

Actually, they probably know it doesn't solve anything.  They just think it sounds good politically (I am making the dangerous assumption that this adminstration is thinking, and actually making some intelligent choices when doing so).  Jon Stewart had a point when he mocked the name of the American Jobs Act -- it's so transparently set up as a campaign vehicle that one would expect more in the name... until you remember these are the same geniuses who thought Obamacare would be bill that created jobs.