Despite a bipartisan effort...

@Cycloptichorn,

oh yippee

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

I think practically nobody but hardcore leftists, Democratic spokespersons, or people willing to believe without evidence are praising it much.

Considering all the polls except Rasmussen have been showing majorities of Americans being in favour of the bill, that must be a whole lot of hardcore leftists, professional Democrats and stupid people. Your trust in the American people is noted.

Foxfyre wrote:

there is a whole lot of pork

It actually has no earmarks in it, none - but we'll note that the traditional definition of "pork" (stuff put into a bill by earmark to benefit a pet project in a Congressperson's district) has been transformed by the right for this occasion into "any government spending we don't agree with and don't think is useful".

Foxfyre wrote:

but only a relatively small percentage of it can be said to be economic stimulus

Well, that's one opinion ... not shared by anyone in the mainstream, though, certainly not by most economists.

Foxfyre wrote:

Some analyst on TV last night said that only about 11% of it would be spent in 2009, another 37% in 2010, and the remainder no sooner than late 2011.

Don't believe everything you hear on TV.

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@nimh,

nimh wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
I think practically nobody but hardcore leftists, Democratic spokespersons, or people willing to believe without evidence are praising it much.

Considering all the polls except Rasmussen have been showing majorities of Americans being in favour of the bill, that must be a whole lot of hardcore leftists, professional Democrats and stupid people. Your trust in the American people is noted.

I spent a lot of time watching various networks and cable TV news sources yesterday and also reading a pretty good cross sampling of analysis and opinion. I probably would have been more accurate to have said that practically nobody but hardcore leftists who have taken the trouble to know what is actually in the bill are praising it. The President is still enjoying his honeymoon in the approval ratings and there is still a lot of blind faith or hope out there.

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Foxfyre wrote:
there is a whole lot of pork

It actually has no earmarks in it, none - but we'll note that the traditional definition of "pork" (stuff put into a bill by earmark to benefit a pet project in a Congressperson's district) has been transformed by the right for this occasion into "any government spending we don't agree with and don't think is useful".

It isn't a matter of whether or not spending is useful. Few people receiving 'free' money from the government are likely to say it isn't useful.

And earmarks and pork are not necessarily the same thing nor does something have to be an 'earmark' in order to be pork. Whatever benefits a particular segment of society and leaves out others can justifiably be labeled 'pork'. A fast train from LA to Vegas, for instance is a great thing for people who want to go from LA to Vegas and back or vice versa, but it doesn't do a damn thing for somebody in New Mexico who can't find a job because the construction industry is almost at a standstill here. Widening a highway or bridge in Indiana is great for those traveling that highway, but it doesn't do anything to relieve congestion on Highway 101 in California.

You put the money out there for the lobbyists and opportunists to go after, and a whole lot that is ultimately distributed to this group or for that cause or whatever will then become pork. Does anybody with a clue, for instance, think that the lion's share if not all of the so-called community grant allocation will not go to ACORN?

$30 million is allocated to save the marsh mouse. $30 million! I am guessing that that exceeds the lifetime taxes paid by all the regular A2K members combined. Do you think we'll get our money's worth for that $30 million? How many children could be better educated with that $30 million? How many parents of kids could go to work if $30 million was granted in tax relief that would gear up business to start hiring again?

It isn't a matter of whether it is a good cause. It is a matter of false advertising and spending money that we don't have for projects that we don't have to do right now for purposes other than stimulating the economy.

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Foxfyre wrote:
but only a relatively small percentage of it can be said to be economic stimulus

Well, that's one opinion ... not shared by anyone in the mainstream, though, certainly not by most economists.

I disagree. I think certainly most economists--at least almost all that I have read and/or listened too other than the left wing extremists agree that the package will not do all that much to stimulate anything other than more government stuff. Even the CBO doesn't think there is much economic stimulus there.

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Foxfyre wrote:
Some analyst on TV last night said that only about 11% of it would be spent in 2009, another 37% in 2010, and the remainder no sooner than late 2011.

Don't believe everything you hear on TV.

I certainly don't believe everything I hear on TV. I would suggest that you don't believe everything you read in the leftwing propanda mill either.

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By the way, taking the Republicans' lead, here's Fox News fearmongering about the Buy American provision in the stimulus bill. Because you know, it would be so much better, if you are going to commit - what was it McCain called it? Generational theft? - by spending all those hundreds of billions of dollars to stimulate the economy, to see a huge chunk of it passed on straight to China.

What strikes me in this kind of thing is the lack of any internal coherence to much of the complaints from the right. You will have the same people who complain one moment that the stimulus will do little for American workers, turn around the next and deplore a provision that will ensure stimulus billions are spent on American workers, rather than flowing abroad through imports.

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@Foxfyre,

Quote:

$30 million is allocated to save the marsh mouse. $30 million! I am guessing that that exceeds the lifetime taxes paid by all the regular A2K members combined. Do you think we'll get our money's worth for that $30 million? How many children could be better educated with that $30 million? How many parents of kids could go to work if $30 million was granted in tax relief that would gear up business to start hiring again?

Fox, this is why you are having a hard time being taken seriously - though you're in good company, your Republican senators and Congressmen are right there with ya.

What you have written above is a lie. The stimulus bill contains no money to save marsh mice or any mice. But some right-wing website claimed it did and the rumor spread through the wingnutosphere right to Limbuagh, right to your elected representatives. But that doesn't make it true.

You don't even know what's in the bill. And you are willing to credulously believe lies about what is in it. This doesn't speak highly of your ability to judge it's utility.

Cycloptichorn

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I've read a lot of the bill now and will gradually get through it all. Have you?

Anyhow, I got the marsh mouse stuff from CNN. You want to paint THEM as a right wing propaganda tool?

Quote:

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When it comes to pork in the stimulus bill, some on Capitol Hill seem to be counting on ignorance, apathy or indifference.

SEN CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Let me say this to all of the chattering class, that so much focuses on those little tiny, yes, porky amendments. The American people really don't care.

PILGRIM: Not really. Public watchdog groups have targeted what they describe as earmarks in pork that they hear are going into the final version of the bill, $30 million to protect endangered wetlands around San Francisco, home to the salt marsh harvest mouse (ph), a pet project of Nancy Pelosi's. Pelosi's office says it's about clean water, a better environment and creating jobs.

Six hundred million dollars for energy-efficient vehicles, including electric golf carts for neighborhood travel, $400 million for health prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, $10 billion to the National Institute of Health, a particular interest of Arlen Specter who has long campaigned for such funding, or $2 billion for a rail system Senator Harry Reid has been pushing for.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: We knew that Harry Reid has managed to actually earmark $8 billion for a rail line system that's four times higher than what was voted on in the Senate bill on Tuesday.

REP. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: Senator Chuck Schumer referred to the quote, "porky elements of this bill" and we're learning about millions for golf carts and this morning learning about millions of dollars to protect San Francisco mice.

PILGRIM: Those kinds of earmarks don't sit well with Michigan, with its double-digit unemployment in the manufacturing sector.

REP. THADDEUS MCCOTTER (R), MICHIGAN: When you see how little has been done for the auto industry, how little has been done in other areas of the manufacturing base, and yet you turn around and see money, billions spent on things such as global warming, what you're really going to start seeing is how does someone who's a blue-collar machinist all of a sudden become a meteorologist (INAUDIBLE) study global warming overnight? The intent of the bill was to create jobs.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: Now final numbers aren't in yet, but states will end up with more than $50 billion in block funding. Many in Congress will argue that these are worthy projects. But the concern is that earmarks are being air dropped into the final version of the bill. And this money will go into all kinds of pet projects. Lou?

DOBBS: I guess at this point those little rats or mice or whatever the heck they are there in Nancy Pelosi's district, I guess they would qualify as pet mice now or pet rats or whatever the heck. This is really ridiculous. I give credit to those Democrats who had more guts, frankly, than some of the Republicans, particularly Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Arlen Specter to say, wait a minute, maybe you know since we've been elected to represent the American people, we actually should read legislation. This could be perhaps a watershed moment. I may be accessibly hopeful here, but I'm going to remain so

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0902/12/ldt.01.html

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

And earmarks and pork are not necessarily the same thing nor does something have to be an 'earmark' in order to be pork. Whatever benefits a particular segment of society and leaves out others can justifiably be labeled 'pork'.

Um - doesn't this definition make every single part of government spending "pork"? What kind of government spending will simultaneously benefit everyone in the country? Other than foreign policy stuff?

Meanwhile, the LA Times reports today that:

"The scale of the legislation is so huge and its provisions so diverse that its effects could potentially be felt in almost every corner of American society -- from small businesses and major industries to individuals in their varied roles as workers, taxpayers and consumers."

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A fast train from LA to Vegas, for instance is a great thing for people who want to go from LA to Vegas and back or vice versa, but it doesn't do a damn thing for somebody in New Mexico who can't find a job because the construction industry is almost at a standstill here.

No, it's kind of hard to devise an infrastructure project that will employ people all across the country at once.

Mind you, I do note an odd disbalance in your wording. Building a fast train from LA to Vegas will not just be handy for travellers. It will also give a lot of people in the construction industry of CA and NV jobs. So it is pork because it will provide thousands of people with jobs, but only in Nevada and not in New Mexico?

That's not the only thing I'm confused about here. Maybe I'm wrong; but weren't you, a couple of weeks ago, complaining that the stimulus bill was all pork and wasteful entitlement spending and not the actual infrastructure spending Obama had promised? Or was that someone else?

So infrastructure spending is pork now too? Isn't infrastructure spending the very definition of economic stimulus?

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Does anybody with a clue, for instance, think that the lion's share if not all of the so-called community grant allocation will not go to ACORN?

Yes.

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I certainly don't believe everything I hear on TV.

OK, but in that case wouldn't it make sense to check stuff you hear on TV before repeating it?

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@nimh,

Republicans, at least the conservative ones, know that free trade will produce overall greater benefits than protectionism. Even crappy trinkets from China require people to negotiate a price and purchase them, people to receive them in the USA, warehouse them, repackage them for shipment, transport them, receive them at their next destination, store them, stock them on the shelves and price them, advertise them, sell them, ring up the sale, keep the books, and pay the taxes as well as build, service, and maintain the facilities where all this takes place.

You throw up a roadblock that makes those things less attractive to the consumer and all those jobs can go away.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Anyhow, I got the marsh mouse stuff from CNN. You want to paint THEM as a right wing propaganda tool?

OK, critical reading 101. The CNN correspondent said that (unspecified) public watchdog groups "have targeted what they describe as earmarks in pork", for example, "$30 million to protect endangered wetlands around San Francisco, home to the salt marsh harvest mouse" - which Nancy Pelosi's office says is "about clean water, a better environment and creating jobs."

So there is $30 million in the budget to protect endangered wetlands around San Francisco. That much is fact. The wetlands are "home to the salt marsh harvest mouse," the correspondent picturesquely points out, which is one of the things special about the wetlands -- but that is a far cry from saying the $30 million is spent just to preserve the mouse. Right? Meanwhile, Pelosi says the money will help the environment and create jobs. While unidentified groups say this is just "earmarks in pork".

And from this you derive the assertion that "$30 million is allocated to save the marsh mouse. $30 million!" how?

1 Reply

@nimh,

nimh wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
And earmarks and pork are not necessarily the same thing nor does something have to be an 'earmark' in order to be pork. Whatever benefits a particular segment of society and leaves out others can justifiably be labeled 'pork'.

Um - doesn't this definition make every single part of government spending "pork"? What kind of government spending will simultaneously benefit everyone in the country? Other than foreign policy stuff?

Pretty much. The interstate highway system for instance improves national security (which was how it was originally sold). It also benefits us all by providing efficient and rapid and therefore more economical transportation of products around the country and affords us all better ability for safe, efficient travel. I don't see that as pork.

Federal funds used to build a road to a fishing lake that is used mostly by the locals and garners votes of appreciation to their elected representative is pork.

Whatever the government spends for a specifically targeted localized group that benefits only that group is pork.

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Meanwhile, the LA Times reports today that:

"The scale of the legislation is so huge and its provisions so diverse that its effects could potentially be felt in almost every corner of American society -- from small businesses and major industries to individuals in their varied roles as workers, taxpayers and consumers."

Yes. Every corner of American society will certainly feel the effects of this package. But for most of us probably not in a good way. I hope I'm wrong about that.

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A fast train from LA to Vegas, for instance is a great thing for people who want to go from LA to Vegas and back or vice versa, but it doesn't do a damn thing for somebody in New Mexico who can't find a job because the construction industry is almost at a standstill here.

No, it's kind of hard to devise an infrastructure project that will employ people all across the country at once.

Mind you, I do note an odd disbalance in your wording. Building a fast train from LA to Vegas will not just be handy for travellers. It will also give a lot of people in the construction industry of CA and NV jobs. So it is pork because it will provide thousands of people with jobs, but only in Nevada and not in New Mexico?

Yup. But then I think it is immoral to confiscate ethically and lawfully acquired wealth from Citizen A in order to benefit Citizen B and I think practically no other process of our government invites graft and corruption as much as that one single thing. If the states of California and Nevada will benefit from a fast train connection two major cities, then let them sell the idea to their citizens and build it. It should not be the responsibility of West Virginia or Illinois or Rhode Island to provide one for them.

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That's not the only thing I'm confused about here. Maybe I'm wrong; but weren't you, a couple of weeks ago, complaining that the stimulus bill was all pork and wasteful entitlement spending and not the actual infrastructure spending Obama had promised? Or was that someone else?

Not me. I have opposed everything in a deficit spending package that will not realistically be expected to free up credit, inspire confidence in the markets, get people back to work in real, sustainable jobs in which they provide products and services that grow the economy rather than government jobs that only leach off of it. I think everything that won't realistically do that should wait at this time.

Disclaimer: Before you put a typical leftwing spin on that, I will add that there are government jobs that are necessary, essential, beneficial, and important to finance from the public treasury.

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So infrastructure spending is pork now too? Isn't infrastructure spending the very definition of economic stimulus?

Infrastructure spending that naturally follows economic growth and is necessary for continued expansion is economic stimulus; i.e. necessary roads, sewer systems, utility systems, communication systems. Economic stimulus is enabling or encouraging business to invest, expand, enlarge, and hire. Economic stimulus is encouraging people to buy and live their lives normally that keeps the businesses they support healthy.

Infrastructure spending that doesn't do any of that is pork.

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Does anybody with a clue, for instance, think that the lion's share if not all of the so-called community grant allocation will not go to ACORN?

Yes.

Considering how much pay back the Democrats in Congress and the President owe ACORN, I think you are naive to the extreme. But we'll see.

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I certainly don't believe everything I hear on TV.

OK, but in that case wouldn't it make sense to check stuff you hear on TV before repeating it?

Not so long as I cite where I heard it and don't insist that I have any basis to know whether it is correct or not. Those who heard something different or know that the information is incorrect can certainly post that. That is called 'discussion' or 'conversation'. Perhaps you've heard of it?

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Republicans, at least the conservative ones, know that free trade will produce overall greater benefits than protectionism. Even crappy trinkets from China require people to negotiate a price and purchase them, people to receive them in the USA, warehouse them [etc].

We're not talking about crappy trinkets here. We're talking, for example, about steel. The infrastructural projects included in the stimulus require tons of steel.

The US steel factories are running below their capacity now. So it's pretty simple: buy home-made or from abroad. In terms of transporting, warehousing, stocking and selling the steel, the amount of jobs created is the same whether it takes place between the harbour where Chinese products arrive and the construction site, or between the Pennsylvania factory and the construction site. But most of the jobs created in the process are located in the actual steel factories, and in one case it will be Chinese workers being employed and in the other American ones.

Now Chinese steel is cheaper. So the choice is: import cheaper steel from China, or buying more expensive homemade US steel. Normally, you might do the former - saves you money.

But this is not just any money. These are hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money that are being spent specifically to create work and income for Americans at a time of crisis. That's the whole point of the spending.

So the choice at hand is this: spend $100,000s of taxpayer money that is being requested specifically to safeguard jobs and incomes at home on Chinese steel that will put Chinese steel workers to work; or buying the more expensive US steel that will put tens of thousands of American steel workers in jobs.

Why Chinese steel is cheaper than US steel is a wholly different kettle of fish: some would blame the US unions, others would point out that the Chinese communists have millions of people working on a pittance a day with no chance to organise or complain about their working conditions. But that's neither here nor there on this question: facts being as they are, you can have the taxmoney spent on putting Chinese steelworkers to work or American ones. In normal spending you might still prefer the former to save some money; but this money is requested specifically to put US workers in jobs.

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@nimh,

And what does it benefit us if the WTO retaliates against protectionist policies and further cripples our economy by refusing to buy anything made in the USA? That was the very real threat that caused us to lift existing tariffs on imported steel I think in 2003. U.S. steel might benefit a bit short term, but it too depends on the whole economic structure to stay healthy. We have to have steady markets for steel we make and that requires healthy business and commerce that requires new construction and infrastructure.

It's all interrelated, Nimh. You can't focus on one component without considering the ripple effect on everything else.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Even the CBO doesn't think there is much economic stimulus there.

This, by the way, is just plain wrong. And it's wrong in a way that goes to the heart of your arguments here.

Read this letter by the director of the CBO to Republican Sen. Gregg.

The director, Douglas W. Elmendorf, first explains that, for sure, considering the unprecedented nature of both the crisis and the stimulus package, there is much uncertainty about what "the macroeconomic impacts of any economic stimulus program" would be. Some economists, he points out, "remain skeptical that there would be any significant effects", but others "expect very large ones."

OK, but what does the CBO think? Elmendorf explains that the CBO "developed a range of estimates of the effects of stimulus legislation" on GDP and employment "that encompasses a majority of economists’ views." And what did they find?

Quote:

By CBO’s estimation, in the short run the stimulus legislation would raise GDP and increase employment by adding to aggregate demand and thereby boosting the utilization of labor and capital that would otherwise be unused because the economy is in recession. Most of the budgetary effects of the legislation would occur over the next few years

Significant short-run effects, thus.

The potential problem the CBO signalled is not, as you claimed, that there just isn't "much economic stimulus there". It is that the stimulus package would - just like other similar proposals - "reduce output slightly in the long run" ... "although such effects would generally be smaller than the short-run
impact of those policies".

This is how that breaks down into numbers, according to the CBO:

Increase in GDP compared to how GDP would develop without stimulus package:

1.4 - 3.8% by the fourth quarter of 2009;
1.1 - 3.3% by the fourth quarter of 2010;
0.4 - 1.3% by the fourth quarter of 2011.

Conversely, without corrective measures in the years in between, the package would depress GDP "by between zero and 0.2 percent" after 2014.

Increase in employment compared to how employment would develop without stimulus package:

0.8 - 2.3 million by the fourth quarter of 2009;
1.2 - 3.6 million by the fourth quarter of 2010;
0.6 - 1.9 million by the fourth quarter of 2011.

Conversely - well, there is no conversely. "The effect on employment is never estimated to be negative".

By ways of context: the NYT reported the other day that "a staggering 3.6 million jobs" had been lost since December 2007. In the best of scenarios, the stimulus package would make up for all of those losses by the end of 2010, softening the blow of the job losses that will undoubtedly occur in the meantime significantly.

Another way of putting these numbers in context: Wal-Mart - the largest private sector employer in the world - employs 1.4 million people. So the stimulus is the equivalent of creating a new, equally huge Wal-Mart - or two of them.

Of course - if it wasn't for the costly compromises that Republican Sens. Collins, Snowe and Specter and conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson pushed through, the stimulus would have created many more extra jobs ... Krugman says as much as 600,000. But unfortunately the liberals did not get their way.

So there you are. The CBO predicts slightly adverse long-term effects, involving a potential depression of GDP by 0.2%, but significant positive short-term effects -- involving GDP being 1-4% higher in the next two years with this stimulus legislation than it would otherwise have been, and some 1-3 million jobs that would have been lost or not have been created without the stimulus in the next two years.

1 Reply

@nimh,

Yes, and the CBO has such a great recent track record of being spot on about the economy.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/19/business/NA-FIN-US-Risky-Mortgages-Congress.php

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Meanwhile, Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, gave a more tempered forecast, saying that financial market turmoil and weakened consumer confidence pose economic threats but are not likely to send the economy into a recession.

"The risk of recession is elevated but the most likely scenario at this point seems to be continued economic growth," Orszag said.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

And what does it benefit us if the WTO retaliates against protectionist policies and further cripples our economy by refusing to buy anything made in the USA?

That would be highly unlikely. There will be some sound and fury, but for one, the measure does not violate the WTO treaty; and secondly, other WTO member states have, as we say in Dutch, "butter on their heads" - they engage in the same kind of measures themselves.

Todd Tucker explains:

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Translated out of trade lingo, both Canada and EU give their nations' products much more generous preferences than Congress is even considering giving ours. While current U.S. laws (merely extended in the stimulus bill) give U.S. iron and steel a leg up over the foreign competition for transit projects, Canada and the EU give their firms a leg up over American companies and products on EVERY aspect of transit funding, and many other government purchases besides.

And, we're not criticizing them for it: why SHOULD decisions by democratically elected parliaments about how to best spend tax dollars on domestic infrastructure be subject to constraints imposed by international trade agreements? There is no "protectionism" at issue here. But, it is certainly hypocrisy--and perhaps a bit of opportunism--on the part of Ottawa and Brussels.

1 Reply

@nimh,

Well you'll have to convince our new president of that. He's the one who recently backed down in the face of such threats.

1 Reply

@maporsche,

At the time, (fall, 1997) all economic indicators backed up the CBOs view. It had no way of seeing the crisis that was building inside Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or the problems they were creating for financial institutions in the packages they were selling to them. And our elected law makers--Chuck Shumer, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd et al--were uttering soothing words in front of television cameras that all was well and were accusing anybody sounding the alarm of irresponsible fear mongering even as they urged the financial institutions to keep making risky loans to the 'underserved'. Even Greenspan and Bernanke admitted they missed seeing it coming.

I agree that the CBO using mathematical models for its projections can at best make educated guesses and it certainly is not fallible. But you can't hang the financial collapse on them.

(In other analysis by the CBO, it concluded that we would do better doing nothing than by passing this spending bill.)

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@Foxfyre,

I'm not talking 1997. That quote is from September 2007!

And I'm not blaming them. I just don't they should be the authority on what needs to be done now, given how poorly they've done in the very recent past.

1 Reply

@maporsche,

maporsche wrote:

I'm not talking 1997. That quote is from September 2007!

And I'm not blaming them. I just don't they should be the authority on what needs to be done now, given how poorly they've done in the very recent past.

She meant to write 2007. The rest of her post is consistent with that time frame.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

As Nimh pointed out, that article does not state at any point that there is any money earmarked to protect any mouse in any salt marsh.

Your elected leaders however have been going on a tear claiming exactly that, despite the falsity of the accusations. It highlights the inherent unseriousness of the Republicans on this issue.

I think that claiming that infrastructure improvements are all 'pork' is a pretty good determiner that you are willing to change the meaning of the word 'pork' to whatever is convenient for your argument. B/c that's not how it is typically described.

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

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