I think Obama meant "show me a project that should be done or could be used as a part of the stimulus" not "show me the number needs to be bigger"

I think he's asking for programs...

$800 Billion is a specific number, but I don't think that's what he's asking to be "shown." Sounded to me like he was talking specific infrastructure projects, specific targeted tax cuts. Not just "we need a stimulus this big" v. "no no, it has to be THIS big!!" but "we need more high speed rail in CA and the northeast corridor" v. "we also need increased broadband in these urban areas!" We can spend $500 billion to $1.2 trillion on lobster forks, but that won't do much.

We're probably better off debating specific programs and targeted policies, rather than arguing over broad numbers representative of divergent ideological views of government and spending.

Thankfully, Krugman has a column/blog (and also, I imagine, a direct link to administration), so I don't doubt he'll get some ideas to Obama. You, too, have a blog. So rather than debating general numbers, what sorts of specific programs do you think should be included in the stimulus package?

Why are we using that number rather than $1.2 trillion, or $500 billion?

That's easy to explain. $500 billion is obviously too small but anything that has "trillion" on it is assumed to be scary. Hence $800 billion.

So wait a minute, how’s he supposed to know which ideas are good and which are bad? Everybody has their own set of cherrypicked stats they can use to “prove” their ideology is the best one, but two months ago the country decided it wanted a Dem President and a Dem legislature. Those candidates ran on a platform of “Republicans are wrong about the economy”–Obama more than anyone. So why are we letting those same Republicans make our decisions for us now?

Just because the Republican party has clawed its way into forming (slightly less than) half of the country’s political landscape doesn’t mean its ideas are legitimate or its people trustworthy.

So why are Dems bending over and spreading their proverbial cheeks yet again? Haven’t we had enough of that?

Which brings us to the reverse question: When will Obama show us?

Obama is asking for help. He's up to his ass in alligators.

He's good at the flowery rhetoric, but now he must perform and he has little experience. That's why all of his appointments are from Clinton's administration.

He's clueless.

Obama's plan needs a unifying title. How about DLC Lite? or More Paulson Bullshit? or Whatever Mitch Wants? or the Andrew Mellon Blood on the Streets Plan.

Turning the Congress loose to craft a stimulus with only the constraints that Obama outlined is actually to ask for The Favorite Earmarks of 2009.

I think we have witnessed the pre-inaugural death of the Obama administration, with the intro to 'just smack me around' negotiations.

Give the money to (blue) states. Ready to go.

That's easy to explain. $500 billion is obviously too small but anything that has "trillion" on it is assumed to be scary. Hence $800 billion.

Well then, I suggest that Obama should chat with Krugman and then bring in whoever runs Ticketmaster.

Item: Federal Stimulus Package
Price: $800,000,000,000

note: price does not include handling fee ($100,000,000,000), infrastructure expansion fee ($225,000,000,000), or stimulate our asses out of a depression fee ($300,000,000,000).

What fumphis and Anonymous said.

Gore/Feingold --

You're really going to second a guy using an anal rape analogy? Nice.

"Which brings us to the reverse question: When will Obama show us?"

On the level of practical politics, since Congress has made it clear they're not going to get to the stimulus until mid-February at best...what's the advantage to Obama putting out a bunch of specific details for Dems, Reps and the media to slice and dice 29 ways 'til Sunday?

Mike

What folks seem to be missing is that this is brilliant politics, promoting that consistent theme of Obama's of getting past blue and red America. It will keep public support for him and his programs high and so something good (no, not perfect according to any of us) will get passed, thus yielding consistent public and political support. This is how you earn political capital.

I Laugh Out Loud when people trumpet that fatass Gore. What did he do for 8 years as Vice President of the most powerful nation as the Icecaps melted? He deserved to lose in 2000. I voted for Nader. Now Gore comes out with a movie to scare us. Thanks for nothing.

Krugman was unfairly critical of Obama all through the Democratic primary, and today's column sounds awfully like those columns did. I like Krugman and was glad when he won the Nobel, but still think it's funny that Obama called him out. And will be funny to see what Krugman writes in response.

Obama is soon to be the President of the U.S. The buck stops with him. Anyone, including Peter K, who do not get that the time for rhectoric is almost will be forced by the economic realities that Krugman describes to address them. I just said at Mydd the problem with Obama is that he is still acting like a legislative representative rather than the head of the executive branch. Its as if he and his people are still stuck in campaign mode where they simply could say and do whatever for the daily emotional value. That time is now over.

Krugman's political calculator is correct here.

The optimal solution for the GOP over the next two years is a stimulus plan that costs lots of money and delivers little, because that lets them run in 2010 on Gubmint Duznt Work.

Now, there's an obvious psychological constraint around the word "trillion", as Ron E. suggests , so there's an obvious political gambit in starting at $800bn and letting it grow on the floor of Congress, even if economists are prepared to. But then the GOP can say "well, economists want it to be ONE TRILLION DOLLARS anyway".

Point is, the GOP wants this to suck, and to capitalise on it. They like the idea of people suffering for their own political benefit, because that's what they do best.

Anyway, Pesto wins the thread. Do it the Ticketmaster way.

Dave,

It's not rape if you ask for it. And fumphis is right on.

If a trillion is so scary, then how about 1000 billion?

(Although I have this picture stuck in my head of Dr. Evil saying "One triiiiiiilion dollars")

I am not sure what the point of this post is. Or if it's meant honestly or not. . Obama is playing smart politics here... trying to show that he is open to ideas, is concerned about the deficit - he wants to provide a higher stimulus higher but needs the left to help him cover his ass while doing so. Keynes said that in Depression government should even pay people to dig holes and others to refill them as a way to ensure people get money in their pockets and keep spending. However, in practice, these projects are hard to sell politically... they look like a waste of money on the surface unless you are employing people who are unemployed. Practically, there just aren't that many great projects out there right now beyond around $500 mill. What I don't get is why he can't put another contingency $500mln for projects in year's time since it's meant to be a 2 year pgm. By this point next year, hopefully the Admin will have been able to put together a real plan for the green economy, other infrastructure projects will be shovel ready, and states will have new ideas for new projects.

Obama is soon to be the President of the U.S. The buck stops with him. Anyone, including Peter K, who do not get that the time for rhectoric is almost will be forced by the economic realities that Krugman describes to address them.

UM ACCORDING TO MY CALENDAR HE WON'T BE PRESIDENT FOR TEN DAYS.

Which goes to show people are so eager to cut him down to size, they are willing to jump the gun. I suspect they have their particular axe to grind, like some were for Hillary, etc.

Again it seems like Obama remembered that Krugman was unfairly critical of him to the benefit of his primary opponent Hillary. Why else would he call him out?

"godplay":
I just said at Mydd the problem with Obama is that he is still acting like a legislative representative rather than the head of the executive branch. Its as if he and his people are still stuck in campaign mode where they simply could say and do whatever for the daily emotional value. That time is now over.

Let me just point out that acting like a dictator/monarch did not work well for our out-going President George Bush.

'nuff said.

Should we mention specific projects?

OK, resurface the Suitland Parkway in MD/DC. The road's surface is in pretty sorry shape these days.

Maryland's postponed its plans to put in a new Suitland Parkway - MD Route 4 interchange. The planning's been done. Give MD the money to build the interchange.

Oh yeah, resurface the bikepath alongside Suitland Parkway inside the D.C. line, and extend it out into MD, to the Route 4 interchange.

Krugman putting up a closed-form model with a couple of parameters is very, very, far from a demonstration that the stimulus will work. Someone needs to brief what-ifs and sensitivity analysis on a couple of full-scale macro models, reconcile them, and then make a decision. This stimulus is going to be tricky to reverse. It would not be hard at all to fuck it up.

I think this "trillion is a scary number" meme is a perfect example of how Beltway conventional wisdom can drink your milkshake. The polls I've seen suggest that the public isn't hung up on a number per se -- they want to see something work. If Obama means what he said today then the 800 billion would in effect be a starting point. One hopes the Washington punditocracy/political elite will come to the same conclusion and stop trying to limit reasonable discussion by wisdom they pulled out of thin air.

Politics, baby.

He has to treat the numerical amount of the stimulus as a political issue rather than a policy one. To appease those who would want a very much smaller, or more tax-cut-centric bill.

This works in a country like ours, in which no longer tenable orthodoxies remain largely unchallenged and are allowed to hold sway in large segments of the population.

I guess I'm going to come off like a bureaucrat in a shapeless grey 50s suit, but if more politics turned into policy, we would be much better off.

Here's the deal, folks. There's broad consensus for stimulus, but it very well might not work. Given that, Obama has a couple of options. He could become a Krugman acolyte and make the stim package the size Paul wants it at fairly large political capital expenditure and STILL run the risk that the economy isn't clearly better by 2012. Or he can take what's available for little political risk and if it doesn't do the trick, little ventured little lost: it's the Bush recession. Try again in 2010. Given what we know about the man, what should we expect?

Me personally, I have my doubts that a stimulus of any size will do the trick, so I'd rather he not tie his fortunes to a higher figure over Republican opposition that he can then get hung out for when even it doesn't work. We're in for rough times. That's the long and short, people.

from this morning's NYTimes story on this issue, by Edmund Andrews and David Herszenhorn

"Christina Romer, whom Mr. Obama has designated to be his chief economist, concluded in research she helped write in 1994 that interest-rate policy is the most powerful force in economic recoveries and that fiscal stimulus generally acts too slowly to be of much help in pulling the economy out of recessions, though associates said she now supports a big stimulus package if policy makers roll it out early enough in the recession."

Don't these fools know that interest rate policy is played out, and we're in a zero short term rate world already? Doesn't anyone report the news to the news media?

bdbd - don't blame "the media" unless you know what they report about Romer is untrue. Simple.

How can people just lie back and let someone with no economic background claim that the crisis is so huge that a trillion must be spent on unspecified projects that NO ONE CAN ASSESS THE VALUE OF? The demand that it be done right away, yesterday, should raise suspicion, would raise suspicion in people who were not idiots.

It sure seems his plan is to let Congresspeople add their pet projects to grow the bill. That way they have an incentive to make it pass and they get the political hit for a huge bill.

I'm not sure how this fits in with his "no earmarks" pledge, though. Maybe the rule will be that if you want a mental health center in your district you'll have to buy a mental health center for every district?