Obama will never stop reaching out to them. It's too valuable a PR tool for him. They look petty; he looks statesmanlike. Plus, that's what he's wired to do. It's who he is.

So the Republicans limited the size of the stimulus, got in more tax cuts, and made the President jump through hoops over stupid spending arguments, hung any failure fully around Obama's neck, and have Halprin already saying how Obama needed to compromise more. Seems to me they played it near perfect.

I enjoyed this post on the quality of the house bill, the lack of GOP support and Obama's approach:

The House Bill Was Crap

This wasn't Barack Obama's bill, but rather a piece of wish-list crap from David Obey. It had pork, way too little infrastructure spending, and wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

This feels like it has some truthiness to it. Shouldn't we be fighting for a better stimulus section of the bill, as well as against the tax cuts?

I'm with Lina. I don't get this whole lefty meme that Obama got screwed.

The structure of the business tax breaks is highly questionable, but business tax breaks were a campaign promise. This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. He hasn't been naive or misguided. He's doing precisely what he said he would do if elected.

And for this whinging about all the good components Obama allowed to be stripped from the bill, every last one of those proposals will be passed into law. They will simply be included in other legislation. Will there be a mass breakout of teen pregnancies if additional family planning funds are provided in April rather than February? Of course not.

Obama's got the hammer, and he knows it. This isn't 2007 anymore. Dems don't need to fly under the radar, anymore, slipping liberal programs into other bills to get passage. This stimulus bill is not our last, desperate attempt to get legislation passed. We've got at least two years of massive Congressional majorities and a Dem President. Take a breath, already.

No argument, none, to be made for the stimulative effects of business tax cuts? Why, you lying fucktard!

But Feldstein does make an argument for business tax cuts. Just not these incompetently formulated tax cuts. The purpose of the Obama proposal, as far as I can tell, was to create a constituency for the business tax cuts among Republican supporters. Businesses can see what they'd get, and they don't have to do anything to get the cash. But that doesn't encourage investment, which is what Feldstein thinks tax cuts should do.

When Marty Feldstein and Joe Stiglitz agree on an element of fiscal policy, there's really no controversy within the profession on the matter.
Why?

This stimulus will still pass in the end, and it's probably better to get something through fast than to repeat the fight in order to get a better deal.

Agreed. Though I can't help but hope the administration and/or congressional Democrats might consider a supplemental stimulus bill in the near future (who knows, worsening conditions may force them to do so). I'm particularly worried about the funds allocated for aid to state and local governments. I think the amounts I've been reading about are too low, and that we're going to see a whole lotta public sector pink slips in the next few months. And that is completely unnecessary given the federal government's ability to borrow at no cost (and given its ownership of printing presses).

Sadly, the profession still has its fair share of wingnuttery - Cato published a full-page ad in the New York Times yesterday signed by a couple of hundred economists, arguing against any stimulus whatsoever and calling for tax cuts and spending cuts. There are a lot of bush leaguers in the crew but there are three Nobel laureates as well. It's pathetic enough to make me want to hand back my sheepskin but there you have it.

"No argument, none, to be made for the stimulative effects of business tax cuts?"

Okay, sure somebody somewhere may have a valid argument in favor of the cuts, but here's my view:

I own a small business, and I am losing money hand over fist right now. I don't need a tax cut on non-existent profits. I need CUSTOMERS who have money to spend.

So what are these major concessions democrats gave up in their attempts to woo conservative support? Family planning services? Come on, really?

The only problems with the stimulus bill arose out of our, the left, lack of imagination, not our attempts to woo republican support.

Public support for the stimulus is high, Democrats approval ratings are high, and every media outlet is saying that the house GOP is taking a huge political risk to look foolish.

Hell, even conservative economists like Mark Zandi McCain economic adviser and certain AEI economists support the basic structure of the bill.

We have very very little to complain about right now.

PS I think family services are really important, but it was always going to be a tough sell in a stimulus bill. The exclusion of that provision AT THIS TIME is a very very small concession.

Adagio, this stimulus plan will work for you then, assuming your customers are found exclusively among government employees.

also, Thomas, people whose place of employment have customers who are government employees, and on down the line

Adagio, this stimulus plan will work for you then, assuming your customers are found exclusively among government employees.

I don't now how anybody can make this claim. This bill won't prevent a net decrease in public sector employment in the hundreds of thousands.

I'd like to hear Joe Stiglits and Robert Barro debate this.

Right now, most of us are just pretending we understand whether spending or tax cuts are a better stimulus, or whether doing nothing would be better. There's a lot of faith-based economics going on.

As Galbraith once said: "There are two kinds of economists: Those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know."