Howard Dean: People Want Strength

Today or yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Stimulus package and everyone was marveling at the conservative hypocrisy epitomized by Republicans fighting against the Stimulus bill before it was passed and lying about its impact since then (especially this week), while sandwiched in between, something like a hundred of them demanded some of that money for their pet projects back home-- and even touted the benefits as though they had passed the legislation!

Disgraced former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, now one of MSNBC's right-wing talking heads, invited Howard Dean and Sam Stein onto his show yesterday to discuss the anniversary. Dean, though effectively and justifiably bashing the Republicans for their crass obstructionism, didn't make any friends at the White House. He forcefully pointed out that the Obama is coming across as weak and incompetent. I'm sure there must be open to the possibility that there might possibly be some people who disagree with the proposition that Obama is one gigantic disappointment... but I've never met one. The best I ever hear about him is that he's better than the alternatives.

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Obama's biggest mistake was made on the second day after his election when he chose the Beltway's most over-hyped incompetent, Wall Street shill Rahm Emanuel to run his administration. There is nothing Wall Street could have done more effectively to sabotage that "hopey-changey thing" than placing one of their most dependable operatives right at the heart of the Administration. Emanuel spent his entire career doing three things: enriching himself, ingratiating himself to the richest and most powerful forces, and manufacturing a totally baseless image with the pathetically snookered sucker media in The Village. And Obama fell for it, lock, stock and barrel. Dean didn't-- which is why the most spectacularly successful head of the DNC was replaced by a colorless and failed conservative hack. Yesterday's NY Times said all that is needed to be said about the results of the Stimulus package. Take my word for it-- it isn't what you'll hear parroted by the TV talking heads who reach far more people (and have a different agenda).

Just look at the outside evaluations of the stimulus. Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative.

Yet I’m guessing you don’t think of the stimulus bill as a big success. You’ve read columns (by me, for example) complaining that it should have spent money more quickly. Or you’ve heard about the phantom ZIP code scandal: the fact that a government Web site mistakenly reported money being spent in nonexistent ZIP codes.

And many of the criticisms are valid. The program has had its flaws. But the attention they have received is wildly disproportionate to their importance. To hark back to another big government program, it’s almost as if the lasting image of the lunar space program was Apollo 6, an unmanned 1968 mission that had engine problems, and not Apollo 11, the moon landing.

The reasons for the stimulus’s middling popularity aren’t a mystery. The unemployment rate remains near 10 percent, and many families are struggling. Saying that things could have been even worse doesn’t exactly inspire. Liberals don’t like the stimulus because they wish it were bigger. Republicans don’t like it because it’s a Democratic program. The Obama administration hurt the bill’s popularity by making too rosy an economic forecast upon taking office.

Moreover, the introduction of the most visible parts of the program-- spending on roads, buildings and the like-- has been a bit sluggish. Aid to states, unemployment benefits and some tax provisions have been more successful and account for far more of the bill. But their successes are not obvious.

...The case against the stimulus revolves around the idea that the economy would be no worse off without it. As a Wall Street Journal opinion piece put it last year, “The resilience of the private sector following the fall 2008 panic-- not the fiscal stimulus program-- deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the impressive growth improvement.” In a touch of unintended irony, two of article’s three authors were listed as working at a research institution named for Herbert Hoover.

Of course, no one can be certain about what would have happened in an alternate universe without a $787 billion stimulus. But there are two main reasons to think the hard-core skeptics are misguided-- above and beyond those complicated, independent economic analyses.

The first is the basic narrative that the data offer. Pick just about any area of the economy and you come across the stimulus bill’s footprints.

In the early months of last year, spending by state and local governments was falling rapidly, as was tax revenue. In the spring, tax revenue continued to drop, yet spending jumped-- during the very time when state and local officials were finding out roughly how much stimulus money they would be receiving. This is the money that has kept teachers, police officers, health care workers and firefighters employed.

Then there is corporate spending. It surged in the final months of last year. Mark Zandi of Economy.com (who has advised the McCain campaign and Congressional Democrats) says that the Dec. 31 expiration of a tax credit for corporate investment, which was part of the stimulus, is a big reason.

The story isn’t quite as clear-cut with consumer spending, as skeptics note. Its sharp plunge stopped before President Obama signed the stimulus into law exactly one year ago. But the billions of dollars in tax cuts, food stamps and jobless benefits in the stimulus have still made a difference. Since February, aggregate wages and salaries have fallen, while consumer spending has risen. The difference between the two-- some $100 billion-- has essentially come from stimulus checks.