DeLong Dumps on Obama

In a posting on his web site, Brad DeLong, economics professor at UC Berkeley, nails the fundamental flaw in Obama:

The strategy of the Obama administration -- in the stimulus, in climate change, in healthcare, in national security -- appears to be to decide what good policy is, take two giant steps toward whatever position the Republicans are setting out, extend the hand of nonpartisan technocratic governance and say "we should come to an agreement," and then get kicked in the face because Republicans don't have a policy but rather an attitude. They opposed everything President Clinton proposed in his first term no matter what it was and won the 1994 midterm election elections, and they hope to repeat that.

And he explains who the "too little, too late" Obama stimulus plan was arrived at:

Back at the start of October, when it became clear that the recession was not going to be a mild "rolling readjustment" and when it began to become clear just how frozen the financial system was and how much damage it was about to do to investment and spending, economists began talking about how it would be a very good thing to pass a fiscal stimulus. Then the idea was to boost the federal deficit by about $200 billion in fiscal year 2009 (i.e., October 2009 to September 2010), $200 billion in fiscal 2010 and $100 billion in 2011 to put more people to work and cushion the rise in unemployment. The idea was to spend $500 billion in total, to be divided, say, with $125 billion in aid to states so they would not have to cut programs and throw yet more people out of work; $125 billion in tax cuts to relatively poor people feeling liquidity constrained who would spend and not save the additional cash; $125 billion to shovel-ready and near-shovel-ready infrastructure projects; and $125 billion for Congress to distribute to projects individual representatives regarded as worthy because assembling legislative coalitions to pass anything is very hard.

By the end of December, it was clear that the recession was going to be at least twice as big as the early October forecasts. Economists lamented the failure to pass a stimulus at the start of October, and upped estimates of the appropriate amount of stimulus to around $1 trillion -- with $250 billion in aid to states, $250 billion in tax cuts to people strapped for cash who would spend the money, $250 billion in infrastructure and $250 billion in projects individual members willing to join the coalition to pass the thing found worthy.

Turns out that we have (a) a recession not twice but three times as large as forecast in October, (b) a stimulus package of about $600 billion in real and semi-real stimulus, and (c) a stimulus package passed in February rather than October, four months later than it should have been.

The US suffered under the clumsy, incompetent Bush for eight years. It doesn't need to have to suffer under four years of suave but inept and inadequate Obama. There is a slight hope. In the past, Obama showed himself to be a "fast learner". But all the signs are that he is captive to corporate interests and his own bizarre belief that he can bridge an unbridgeable chasm.