In related failure, I present today's Washington Post Editorial:

"Helping hire, equip and pay police, a $4 billion item under the bill, might be a good idea, but writing checks to individual households for the same amount would do more to stimulate the economy. Ditto for $16 billion in Pell Grants for college students, $2.1 billion for Head Start and $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. All of those ideas may have merit, but why do they belong in an emergency measure aimed to kick-start the economy? For sheer irrationality, it would be hard to top the $4.19 billion the bill would give to the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, on top of $4 billion authorized last year. This program gives local governments money to buy and rehabilitate homes that have been foreclosed on -- thus giving lenders an incentive to foreclose on more houses."

Is this not the most logically backwards non-Luskin analysis?

Woops, missed the prior entry. You are quick (or I, slow).

And Donald Luskin still doesn't get it.

Well something exists. This PDF apparently comes from the House Appropriations website, is dated Jan 15 and cites CBO as the source.
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/stimsummary.pdf
I don't see that it supports Boehner's argument. While it is true that less than half of the money is spent by the end of FY2010, the overwhelming majority of it is authorized by that time. And most of the spending projected in the out years of 2013-2019 (a total of $62 billion) is right where you think it would be, in longer term infrastructure projects (Energy and Water $18.6 billion, Highways $17.4 bn, Other Transportation $6.4 bn). We can assume that much of that will be going to pay for jobs created in the first couple of years that simply continue through the actual buildout of the big projects.

Otherwise the spending seems to be as front loaded as possible.

Which all argues for ...

Medicare for All ... Now !

Easily scaled and implemented in less than 1 year.

Real support for families, business, states and local government ...

While the numbers in the above link seem reasonable enough the document is rather oddly titled and I couldn't actually find it on Appropriations website. There was indeed a release of material and a draft bill on Jan 15th, but none of the docs I looked at included this table, nor did any of them share its format.

That being said it really doesn't support Boehner's point anyway. Almost all the money is actually authorized by the end of this year, which for planners at the receiving end equates to checks in the mail, the design and hiring process can start. Plus most of the actual outlays would seem to occur by about spring/summer 2011 which is to say within 2 calender years or so. And a large part of spending in FY 2012 and after is concentrated in spending categories dominated by large scale and hence longer term projects: highways, water projects (dams etc), sewer and clean water, transit, energy and federal buildings. It would seem that the only way to get all of this spending compressed would be just not to do anything big at all.

I have not yet seen a good answer to the frequently-cited argument against any spending that is not instantaneous--that, to quote a recent column by Greg Mankiw, "the economic downturn may be over before the stimulus arrives."

These arguments seem to assume that the need for job-creating stimulus vanishes once the trough of the recession is reached. A look at recent history belies that. I will cite both payroll employment and the ratio of total employment (including self-employment) to the population. First:
NBER trough in March 1991, with the employment/population ratio at 61.8 percent. One year later, payroll employment was 0.2 percent lower than at the trough, and the e/p ratio was 61.5 percent. Two years later, payroll employment up only 1.3 percent from the trough and e/p ratio still 61.5 percent.
Second, NBER trough in November 2001, with e/p at 63.0 percent. One year later, payroll employment is 0.4 percent lower than at the trough and e/p is 62.5 percent. Two years later, payroll employment is 0.6 percent lower than at the trough and e/p is 62.3 percent. Three years later, payroll employment is up only 1.0 percent from the trough (i.e. 0.3 percent per year average growth from the trough), and e/p is still below the trough level at 62.5 percent. (Didn't Greg Mankiw have something to do with economic policy in those years?)

UPDATE 1-Stimulus bill falls short of Obama goal-CBO report

Not so fast Baker ... Reuters~

"WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The Democratic stimulus package the U.S. Congress will weigh on Wednesday falls billions of dollars short of President Barack Obama's goal to pump most of the money into the economy quickly, a report released on Monday showed.

The $816 billion package will pour some $525.5 billion, or 64 percent, via spending and tax cuts into the ailing economy within 19 months, according to the report issued late on Monday by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

Last week, Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag, told lawmakers the administration's goal was to pump at least 75 percent of the money from the stimulus package into the economy by Sept. 30, 2010.

The report expands on another from the same office Republicans had touted last week as showing that less than 40 percent of the stimulus money would filter into the economy over the 19-month period. Democrats complained report was a partial review and CBO on Monday concurred."

~~~

Dear Mr. Baker, even if this report is preliminary the fact of the matter is that this stimulus will NOT work for at least 18 months!

Being the skeptic that I am, this stimulus looks like it really starts kicking in just before the 2012 elections. What a coincidence!

This is exactly why we need Medicare for All. We could have the stimulus within a year ... everybody with health care coverage, businesses helped, the under and uninsured helped with state and local government coffers being filled once again. But NO, the Dems are playing politics with the lives of the American people to have a big spending spree for their reelections.

Doesn't Pass the Smell Test Baker.