The Center for American Progress explains (again) that the Stimulus did indeed work (VIDEO)

ProPublica: Separating Economic Fact from Economic Fiction (particularly about the Stimulus!)

ProPublica has a list of five myths about the Economy, but these two were of particular interest to me:

2. The stimulus failed./The stimulus rescued the economy.

Neither. It clearly hasn't hauled the country back to full employment, but widely-cited economic models show it probably prevented a deeper downturn.

Many economists and nonpartisan forecasting firms have credited the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act with increasing employment by at least two million jobs (see Table 8). Although the unemployment rate remains stuck at 9 percent, several economists estimate that unemployment would have been higher -- as much as 12 percent -- and remained high longer without it.

One of the most prominent studies on the stimulus was put out by the economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi in July 2010. The pair concluded that while the bank bailout and actions by the Federal Reserve had a greater impact in ending the recession, the stimulus was a critical part of the remedy. "We do not believe it a coincidence that the turnaround from recession to recovery occurred last summer, just as the ARRA was providing its maximum economic benefit," they wrote.

Other analyses have shown less of an impact -- that aid for state budgets and education "funded staffing that would have occurred anyway" and that the stimulus saved government jobs while doing little to boost private-sector employment.

Critics say it failed because it fell short of what administration officials claimed it would do. They point to a chart produced shortly before Obama's inauguration by his economic advisers Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, which showed that if the stimulus plan were passed, unemployment wouldn't top 8 percent. But the recession turned out to be much more severe than they and blue-chip economists realized.

The goal of the stimulus "was to end the Great Recession and jumpstart our recovery," said Zandi, who has advised John McCain but has said he's a registered Democrat. "It did that. It was never intended nor should it be expected to be the source of long-term growth. The plan was always to hand the baton to the private sector. And that was going smoothly until we got creamed" by the European debt crisis and rising gas prices.

3. The stimulus should have been bigger.

This is a red herring. Politically, the initial stimulus package almost certainly couldn't have been bigger because the moderate senators who provided the key votes wouldn't stomach a package over $800 billion. Indeed, late in the game, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and others were looking to trim the bill to $650 billion.

Regardless of the politics, many economists, including New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, insist the stimulus was too weak to deal with the crisis. Other economists, including John F. Cogan and John B. Taylor at Stanford University and the Hoover Institution, argue that the amount of stimulus spending wouldn't have mattered because it mainly reduced borrowing by state and local governments rather than increasing spending. So, they contend, the predicted benefits were washed out.

In any case, the total stimulus is bigger than you might have thought. Since the Recovery Act, Congress has approved hundreds of billions of dollars in additional stimulus, including the renewal of unemployment benefits, this year's payroll tax cut and the extensions of the education jobs fund and the homebuyer tax credit. The total is now well over a trillion dollars.

But even that isn't sufficient knowing what we do now, according to Romer. As she recently told The Washington Post's Ezra Klein, the economy "probably needed about $2 trillion given what we were actually up against."

Courtesty @vdaze, the "I'm Grateful" site... (VIDEO)

Just a nice collection of photos and videos containing reasons to be grateful to the President.

Actually, I missed this video:

The Daily Show's complete, extended interview with Bill Clinton (VIDEO)

I really, really wish that Jon and the gang would just put a single friggin' clip up, because trying to figure out what was what in this interview, Broadcast vs. Extended, was a pain in the @#$.

But this was a great interview, and to give Jon credit, I love the fact that he says screw it, keeps the cameras rolling, and gets it all out.

Part 1 (Broadcast):

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill Clinton Pt.1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Part 2 (Broadcast):

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill Clinton Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Part 1 (Extended):

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Bill Clinton Extended Interview Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Part 2 (Extended):

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Bill Clinton Extended Interview Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Actual good news that no one's walking back...

According to the Huffington Post, it looks like the Small Business Bill has cleared "a key procedural hurdle" the Senate, 61-37  Yay.  that means it'll pass by the end of the week.  Big victory for the President.  Medium victory for Congress, since it'll create Jobs that'll help the next Congress.

Ever notice that we've entered an age where clearing "key procedural hurdles" counts as news?

The two Republicans who crossed party lines to help actual Americans are both not running for re-election: George Voinovich of Ohio (praised by the President last week) and George LeMieux of Florida.

Individual Democrats who deserve to lose: Part 2

Part 1 was Harry Reid, just for this.

I used to like Michael Bennett of Colorado, but...

...apparently, he'll only support the President's Stimulus proposals if they involve no new spending.

He'll only support Stimulus spending...if it doesn't spend any money???

This is why I don't give money to the DSCC.

Ezra v. Brooks

I'm looking at the last couple days on this blog, and it seems a majority of it involves me calling someone out, or me celebrating someone else calling someone out.

Why break a trend?

Here's Erza Klein calling out David Brooks of the New York Times:

David Brooks has a column today offering a counterfactual scenario in which Obama entered office, passed a massive payroll tax cut instead of the stimulus bill, focused his rhetoric on long-term growth rather than short-term recovery, cut spending, and did a super-popular energy bill rather than the mildly unpopular health-care bill. The idea, of course, is that him and the Democrats would be in better political shape than they currently are.

Like any counterfactual, you could poke holes in this. But instead, let's grant it. Obama entered office in January of 2009, had a long conversation with Future Brooks, and adopted this plan. As Brooks doesn't mention cap-and-trade or a price on carbon, I'll assume this is an energy investment bill rather than a carbon-pricing bill. As Brooks doesn't argue that his plan would've reduced the unemployment rate relative to its current level (and as that would be a very difficult case to make), I'll assume the economy looks pretty much as it looks now.

Maybe, in that world, Brooks is right. Maybe Democrats would be facing a loss of 25 or 30 seats rather than 45 or 50. I could think of reasons that that's not true, but let's say, for the moment, that it is.

What Brooks seems to be offering is a trade: Do less stuff, hold more seats. Now, Brooks doesn't think the health-care bill was a good bill, but Obama does, and most Democrats do. I'm not really sure what Brooks thinks of the stimulus plan's long-term infrastructure investments, but Obama and his team thought they were extremely important to the economy's long-term growth prospects. A universal health-care bill and hundreds of billions in much-needed, long-term investments in exchange for 15 or 20 House seats? Well, what are supermajorities for, if not making that precise trade?

You could say, I guess, that Obama and his team could've gotten more done by doing less in years one and two and then holding Democratic seats so they could continue passing legislation in years three and four. But I'd look at that a bit differently: They spent years one and two working on the issue areas of interest to massive Democratic majorities, like health-care reform and infrastructure investment, and they'll spend years three and four working on things that are of more interest to divided government, like deficit reduction. That is to say, they got everything they could out of the Democratic supermajority, and now they'll actually be able to pivot to the center more easily, as Democrats won't be yelling at Obama to fulfill his campaign promises and do health-care reform.

The odd man out in all this is energy reform, but I'm of the perhaps-pessimistic opinion that a serious cap-and-trade bill never really had a chance. Either way, I'm much more inclined toward critiques of Obama that focus on what more he could have done over the past two years. Saying he could have done less and then he would've been criticized less may or may not be true, but I'm much more worried about failing the uninsured and failing the climate than about failing Democratic candidates running in the 2010 midterms.

Rachel Maddow: When Republicans have no shame (VIDEO)

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I (paraphrase) again. Spoiled Brats!

What if the Stimulus had been bigger?

This has been Krugman's thing recently. So, Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic asked Economist Dean Baker the question flat out:

Most liberals economists now believe the economic stimulus was too small. I'm inclined to believe them. But exactly how much difference would a larger stimulus have made? Pretend Obama had gotten a stimulus that was twice as large, somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion. What would the economy look like today?

I put that question to Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Here's what he said:

As a first approximation, try multiplying everything by 2. The Congressional Budge Office estimates that the stimulus added 1.7-4.5 percent to GDP and that it lowered the unemployment rate by 0.7-1.8 percentage points. If it were twice as large assume GDP growth in the 3.4 -9.0 percent range and the drop in unemployment in the range of 1.4 -3.6 pp. In other words, the unemployment rate today would be between 7.7 percent and 8.8 percent.

There is also a greater likelihood that this would have kicked off self-sustaining growth with a bigger round of investment coming on board and maybe even some real wage growth.

In other words, unemployment would have been more than a full percentage point lower than it is today. And it would be heading down faster.

That's a pretty big difference.

That said, devising such a large stimulus may not have been easy. At the time, White House officials said they were having trouble finding more shovel-ready infrastructure projects and, more generally, coming up ways of ways to inject more money into the economy.

Larry Mishel, who is from the Economic Policy Institute, thinks you have to acknowledge those limits. But he also thinks it was possible to do a lot more and, to his credit, was saying so at the time. Here's what he just told me:

Well, the stimulus would have created twice as many jobs, perhaps as many as five million more full-time equivalent jobs. I must admit, however, that though the economy needed that size stimulus, I’m not sure there were good vehicles for executing such a stimulus. I’m not sure I would have wanted to double the tax cuts, and it wasn’t possible to double much of the investments and get them underway in this time period. We could have given states more relief. And, we could have extended the time period of much of the stimulus elements--unemployment insurance, investments, state relief, etc.--so we wouldn’t need to renew tham now.

Five million more jobs--again, if that's correct, it's a big difference.

Of course, such a large stimulus may not have been possible politically. But that's another story.

The President tells Senate Republicans to get off their @#$%! (VIDEO)

Okay, he wasn't that crude.  (That's my job!)



From Steve Benen:

Last week, in the midst of several discouraging economic developments, White House officials recognized the need to sharpen its message a bit. They just weren't sure when.

Yesterday, President Obama was in New Orleans for the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Tomorrow is an Oval Office address on Iraq. Later this week, the focus will be on Middle East peace talks. One official told ABC late last week, "We know he needs to be out there to talk about the economy next week. We haven't yet figured out the way he's going to do that."

So, this afternoon, the president appeared in the Rose Garden to talk up economic policy in general, a chide Republicans for blocking the small-business-incentives bill in specific.

On his first workday back at the White House after a 10-day Martha's Vineyard vacation and a trip to New Orleans on Sunday, Mr. Obama addressed the nation's mounting economic anxieties in brief remarks from the Rose Garden. With the unemployment rate stuck above 9 percent, and the economic recovery all but stalled, he spent part of the morning huddled with his economic advisers.

While he said he and his team are "hard at work in identifying additional measures that could make a difference" -- including extending middle-class tax cuts that are set to expire this year, investing more in clean energy and in infrastructure rebuilding -- the president's most urgent call was directed at members of Congress, who return to work next week.

"This bill has been languishing in the Senate for four months, held up by a partisan minority that won't even allow it to go to a vote. That makes no sense," Mr. Obama said, referring to the small business initiative. He added, "Holding this bill hostage is directly detrimental to our economic growth."

That last point was bolstered by a new USA Today report, which the president made reference to, explaining that about 1,000 small businesses are ready to expand, but are waiting for Senate Republicans to stop playing petty games.

Following up on what we talked about yesterday, though, is there any reason to think the White House may put forward any kind of new economic policies and/or stimulus and/or jobs bill? It's hard to say exactly -- there almost certainly won't be one, ambitious package on the way, but Obama raised the specter of "additional measures."

Specifically, the president said, "[A]s Congress prepares to return to session, my economic team is hard at work in identifying additional measures that could make a difference in both promoting growth and hiring in the short term, and increasing our economy's competitiveness in the long term -- steps like extending the tax cuts for the middle class that are set to expire this year; redoubling our investment in clean energy and R&D; rebuilding more of our infrastructure for the future; further tax cuts to encourage businesses to put their capital to work creating jobs here in the United States. And I'll be addressing these proposals in further detail in the days and weeks to come."

I wouldn't necessarily interpret this as "new economic plan on the way," but it's something to keep an eye on.

Trust Krugman's numbers, never his poltical sense, Part II

Let me put it another way.

Paul Krugman is the guy in the stands, with his team down three touchdowns, with all the Running Backs injured and out for the game, facing the Number 1 defense in the league, talks about how the Team should go back to running the ball more.

Trust Krugman's numbers, never his poltical sense.

I want to know why when other Economic Scholars are out there saying that what's going on now is fairly typical for so-called Credit Recessions, Paul Krugman is still out there with his hair on fire over the size of the Stimulus.

Carmen Reinhart and Vincent Reinhart have authored a paper examining the historical record of economies that experienced a major financial crisis over the ensuing decade. And the results are rather sour news for anyone expecting the U.S. economy to bounce back from the Great Recession rapidly.

Indeed, their major takeaway is that the weak, slow recovery the U.S. has experienced over the last year is well within the historical norm for nations that experience a deep crisis.

They analyzed the economic results following three global financial crises--the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash, 1973 oil shock, and the current experience--and 15 crises in both advanced and emerging nations.

The results: Among advanced economy, per-capital gross domestic product is now about 2 percent lower than it was in 2007, which is comparable to the experience three years after the onset of the 15 severe financial crises studied.

Meanwhile, Krugman at least gives me this:

Now, it’s arguable that even in early 2009, when President Obama was at the peak of his popularity, he couldn’t have gotten a bigger plan through the Senate. And he certainly couldn’t pass a supplemental stimulus now. So officials could, with considerable justification, place the onus for the non-recovery on Republican obstructionism. But they’ve chosen, instead, to draw smiley faces on a grim picture, convincing nobody. And the likely result in November — big gains for the obstructionists — will paralyze policy for years to come.

Krugman in a nutshell: Yeah, even though the Obama Administration could have never passed the Stimulus of the size I wanted, it's still their fault for not passing it. And worse, they're trying to put their best face on the fact that credit recessions are notoriously slow to come back from, even though my recent commentary is ignoring that. Never mind the fact that the President said on the night of his election that this was going to hard-sledding for the next few years.

Spoken like someone who's never had to work for a vote in his life...

Krugman, after repeating a story from Rep. David Obey about how the Stimulus was formed, and downgraded:

But remember, the Cossacks work for the czar.

When Krugman says stuff like this, it's hard to believe he's got a college degree much less a PhD from an acclaimed University. Yeah, the White House staff works for the President, but the Congress...you know the people who actually vote on stuff...work for the people in their districts. The President isn't a CEO, despite what Dubya would have you believe. He can't snap his fingers and get anyone in the Congress to do his bidding. The system was never set up that way. I thought that was a good thing.

The Fireside chat for July 3, 2010 (VIDEO)

As part of the explosion of Recovery Act projects this summer and as a move towards a clean energy future, the President announces nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments to key solar companies.

The President's Speech on Jobs in Youngstown, Ohio (VIDEO)

This one almost slipped past me. It got almost zero coverage on the national stage.

Not the most extraordinary speech he's ever given, but its a good template for the campaign ahead. If you've been watching him speak, you've heard a lot of this stuff before. The crowd reaction felt a little restrained. The biggest laugh/applause lines seemed to come whenever he talked concrete job numbers (i.e., the people in the next county over, thanks to the G.M. bailout are coming back to work). That's how it should be.

The President read the room. He dispensed with the smiles quickly, and told the people of Youngstown what he did, and how it helped.

Now, we’ve got a long way to go before this recovery is felt in the lives of our neighbors and in all the communities that have lost so much ground in this recession and in years before.

But despite that sobering reality, despite all the naysayers in Washington, who are always looking for the cloud in every silver lining, the fact is our economy is growing again. Last month, we gained 290,000 jobs. (Applause.) So think about this. We gained more jobs last month than any time in four years. And it was the fourth month in a row that we’ve added jobs -- and almost all those jobs are in the private sector. Everybody talks about government was doing this, government was doing that. Now, what we did was we encouraged the private sector, gave them the funding, the financing, the support, the infrastructure support in order to invest and get the economy moving again.

And last month also brought the largest increase in manufacturing employment since 1998 -- (applause) -- 1998, because I believe in manufacturing and I believe in manufacturing right here in the United States of America. We can compete against anybody. Youngstown can compete against anybody. You got the best workers. There’s no reason why we can’t compete with anybody if you guys have the support that you need.

And you know what? I think those critics who have been trying to badmouth these efforts -- they know it’s working. These folks who opposed this every step of the way, predicting nothing but failure, they know it’s working because -- this always puts a smile on my face -- even as they’ve tried to score political points attacking these members of Congress, a lot of them go home and then they claim credit for the very things they voted against. They’ll show up at the -- to cut the ribbons. They’ll put out a press release. They’ll send the mailings touting the very projects that they were opposing in Washington. They’re trying to have it both ways.

I know that’s hard to imagine in politics, that a politician might try to have it both ways, but here’s the fact: If the “just say no” crowd had won out, if we had done things the way they wanted to go, we’d be in a deeper world of hurt than we are right now. Families wouldn’t have seen those tax cuts. Small businesses wouldn’t have gotten those loans or those health care tax credits that they’re now eligible for. Insurance companies would still be deciding who they want to cover and when they want to cover them, and dropping your health care coverage whenever they felt like it.

Episode V: The Eisenhower Wing Strikes Back!

I can't claim prescience on this, since I've been reading in other news outlets and other blogs (Kos) that this might happen. But when Crist decided to start doubling down on the Stimulus, the tea leaves were there to be read.

And now, two quote-unquote independent sources claim it's about to happen.

Now, what does this mean? Simply put, I don't know. Crist is popular in Florida. He should win the General. He just can't win the Primary.

Another question is what do Democrats do? If Democrats hang together neither Marco Rubio (who has his own problems) nor Crist is going to Foggy Bottom, because they'll split the Republican vote. In fact, Crist's only sure way to victory is to run as a Democrat, but would the Democrats have him?

This seems to be like the New York 23rd, this is more about not getting "Scozzafava-ed", as opposed to making Crist the junior Senator from Florida.

More as it comes...

The Recovery Act – Year One (VIDEO)

President Obama and Vice President Biden mark the one year anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (The Stimulus), legislation that is working to cushion the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and lay a new foundation for economic growth.

"Trashed the Stimulus. Voted No, and then..." (VIDEO)

Rachel highlighting Republican Hypocrisy on the Stimulus.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy