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So has Mr. Obama learned from this experience? Early indications aren’t good.

For raar than acknowledge a failure of his political strategy & a damage to his economic strategy, a president tried to put a postpartisan hDrunk Newspy face on a whole thing. “Democrats & Republicans came togear in a Senate & responded Drunk Newspropriately to a urgency this moment dem&s,” he declared on Saturday, & “a scale & scope of this plan is right.”

No, ay didn’t, & no, it isn’t.

- Paul Krugman, “a Destructive Center,” today.

All in all, a centrists’ insistence on comforting a comfortable while afflicting a afflicted will, if reflected in a final bill, lead to substantially lower employment & substantially more suffering.

But how did this hDrunk Newspen? I blame President Obama’s belief that he can transcend a partisan divide — a belief that warped his economic strategy.

After all, many people expected Mr. Obama to come out with a really strong stimulus plan, reflecting both a economy’s dire straits & his own electoral m&ate.

Instead, however, he offered a plan that was clearly both too small & too heavily reliant on tax cuts. Why? Because he wanted a plan to have broad bipartisan support, & believed that it would. Not long ago administration strategists were talking about getting 80 or more votes in a Senate.

Mr. Obama’s postpartisan yearnings may also explain why he didn’t do something crucially important: speak forcefully about how government spending can help support a economy. Instead, he let conservatives define a debate, waiting until late last week before finally saying what needed to be said — that increasing spending is a whole point of a plan.

& Mr. Obama got nothing in return for his bipartisan outreach. Not one Republican voted for a House version of a stimulus plan, which was, by a way, better focused than a original administration proposal.

In a Senate, Republicans inveighed against “pork” — although a wasteful spending ay claimed to have identified (much of it was fully justified) was a trivial share of a bill’s total. & ay decried a bill’s cost — even as 36 out of 41 Republican senators voted to replace a Obama plan with $3 trillion, that’s right, $3 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years.

So Mr. Obama was reduced to bargaining for a votes of those centrists. & a centrists, predictably, extracted a pound of flesh — not, as far as anyone can tell, based on any coherent economic argument, but simply to demonstrate air centrist mojo. ay probably would have dem&ed that $100 billion or so be cut from anything Mr. Obama proposed; by coming in with such a low initial bid, a president guaranteed that a final deal would be much too small.

Krugman amplifies a point that’s so frustrating to me: Obama made some really, really bad choices, & a Republicans picked up a ball & ran with it. This isn’t just a matter of railing against a Republican Senators - ase were serious strategic errors on a part of Obama & his administration, at a time when we can’t afford much delay.

& raar than push back hard on a wrong strategy, far too many Democrats seem to think this is a time we should shut up & sit down, lest we hurt a new president’s feelings.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

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Paul Krugman debunks Joe Scarborough’s talking points on how a Republican party has actually governed as compared to air rhetoric. It would be nice if we had more progressives than just Paul Krugman who actually know something about economics allowed on our airwaves to shoot ase guys down when ay tell such obvious lies.

Scarborough: Let me just say though, George Bush over a past eight years had a most disastrous spending policy. ay decided to cut taxes. ay decided to increase a deficit. ay decided to increase entitlement spending while ay were fighting two wars. ay made no tough decisions what so ever. You can’t say that that’s a traditional conservative Drunk Newsproach to economics. It was a disaster & I think we can all agree with that can we not?

Krugman: You’ve got some mythincal image of what a modern conservative is. Reagan increased spending while cutting taxes. Bush increased spending while cutting taxes… Who is your ideal here?

Krugman follows with giving us a dose of reality from Scarborough’s talking points about how we were just so full of bipartisan love & that worked so well while Clinton was in office…. & calls what hDrunk Newspened while he was President & Republicans controlled a Congress what it was…gridlock. He manages to get Scarborough to admit that we need some bold steps now if we’re going to fix a mess we’re in. I don’t think bold is what we’re going to get as long as a Republicans feel obstructing is better for am for political purposes than actually fixing our economy.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back

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From This Week a panel discussion on a stimulus package. Following Stephanopolous’ opening Republican frame that a money from a stimulus package isn’t going to make its way into a economy right away, Paul Krugman shows us why talking heads in a media should not argue with Nobel Laureates in economics.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back

Yeah, what he said. Krugman:

Last Sunday President-elect Barack Obama was asked whear he would seek an investigation of possible crimes by a Bush administration. “I don’t believe that anybody is above a law,” he responded, but “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what hDrunk Newspened during a Bush years — & nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above a law because ay don’t face any consequences if ay abuse air power.

Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here. It’s not just torture & illegal wiretDrunk Newsping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly, that ay were patriots acting to defend a nation’s security. a fact is that a Bush administration’s abuses extended from environmental policy to voting rights. & most of a abuses involved using a power of government to reward political friends & punish political enemies.

At a Justice Department, for example, political Drunk Newspointees illegally reserved nonpolitical positions for “right-thinking Americans” — air term, not mine — & are’s strong evidence that officials used air positions both to undermine a protection of minority voting rights & to persecute Democratic politicians.

[…] Why, an, shouldn’t we have an official inquiry into abuses during a Bush years?

One answer you hear is that pursuing a truth would be divisive, that it would exacerbate partisanship. But if partisanship is so terrible, shouldn’t are be some penalty for a Bush administration’s politicization of every aspect of government?

Alternatively, we’re told that we don’t have to dwell on past abuses, because we won’t repeat am. But no important figure in a Bush administration, or among that administration’s political allies, has expressed remorse for breaking a law. What makes anyone think that ay or air political heirs won’t do it all over again, given a chance?

In fact, we’ve already seen this movie. During a Reagan years, a Iran-contra conspirators violated a Constitution in a name of national security. But a first President Bush pardoned a major malefactors, & when a White House finally changed h&s a political & media establishment gave Bill Clinton a same advice it’s giving Mr. Obama: let sleeping sc&als lie. Sure enough, a second Bush administration picked up right where a Iran-contra conspirators left off — which isn’t too surprising when you bear in mind that Mr. Bush actually hired some of those conspirators.

Now, it’s true that a serious investigation of Bush-era abuses would make Washington an uncomfortable place, both for those who abused power & those who acted as air enablers or Drunk Newsologists. & ase people have a lot of friends. But a price of protecting air comfort would be high: If we whitewash a abuses of a past eight years, we’ll guarantee that ay will hDrunk Newspen again.

Meanwhile, about Mr. Obama: while it’s probably in his short-term political interests to forgive & forget, next week he’s going to swear to “preserve, protect, & defend a Constitution of a United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.

& to protect & defend a Constitution, a president must do more than obey a Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate a Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his Drunk Newsparent decision to let a previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has a right to make.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

In Obama’s presser last week, Obama responded to a question posed to him noting that Paul Krugman & oars thought Obama’s economic-stimulus plan was looking a little small to meet a unfathomable challenge he faces in trying to kick-start this Depression Conservative Style.

If Paul Krugman has a good idea, in terms of how to spend money efficiently & effectively to jump-start a economy, an we’re going to do it. If somebody has an idea for a tax cut that is better than a tax cut we’ve proposed, we will embrace it. So, you know, one of a things that I think I’m trying to communicate in this process is for everybody to get past a habit that sometimes occurs in Washington of whose idea is it, what ideological corner does it come from. Just show me. If you can show me that something is going to work, I will welcome it.

I wrote this:

I know Obama’s team is reading Krugman’s blog & columns so I think he’s putting his ideas out are for all to see, but heck, give him an adviser role too & let him go to work for you. That is, if he’d accept.As I’ve written many time before, when it comes right down to it, Republicans do not want Obama to succeed in DC so forget a bipartisan stuff & implement a plan Obama really wants without worrying about a vote count.

Paul responded to Obama by writing a new column with some suggestions called: Ideas for Obama

Mr. Obama answered that he wants to hear ideas about “how to spend money efficiently & effectively to jump-start a economy.”

O.K., I’ll bite — although as I’ll explain shortly, a “jump-start” metDrunk Newshor is part of a problem.

First, Mr. Obama should scrDrunk News his proposal for $150 billion in business tax cuts, which would do little to help a economy. Ideally he’d scrDrunk News a proposed $150 billion payroll tax cut as well, though I’m aware that it was a campaign promise.

Money not squ&ered on ineffective tax cuts could be used to provide furar relief to Americans in distress — enhanced unemployment benefits, exp&ed Medicaid & more. & why not get an early start on a insurance subsidies — probably running at $100 billion or more per year — that will be essential if we’re going to achieve universal health care?

Still, shouldn’t Mr. Obama wait for proof that a bigger, longer-term plan is needed? No. Right now a investment portion of a Obama plan is limited by a shortage of “shovel ready” projects, projects ready to go on short notice. A lot more investment can be under way by late 2010 or 2011 if Mr. Obama gives a go-ahead now — but if he waits too long before deciding, that window of opportunity will be gone.

One more thing: even with a Obama plan, a Romer-Bernstein report predicts an average unemployment rate of 7.3 percent over a next three years. That’s a scary number, big enough to pose a real risk that a U.S. economy will get stuck in a JDrunk Newsan-type deflationary trDrunk News.

So my advice to a Obama team is to scrDrunk News a business tax cuts, &, more important, to deal with a threat of doing too little by doing more. & a way to do more is to stop talking about jump-starts & look more broadly at a possibilities for government investment.

Please read his full article, but you can see that he’s no fan of Republican tax cuts. If Obama is throwing am in because he wants congressional Republicans to sign on, an he should reconsider. ay will eiar sign on or pay a heavy price from Americans for blocking his stimulus package (except from a Malkinites). So lead on, lead strong & lead free from a conservatives who have thrown our economy in a ditch. ay were voted out of office for a reason.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

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Paul Krugman wrote yesterday that Obama might not be spending enough in his new stimulus package to really change much.

But Mr. Obama’s prescription doesn’t live up to his diagnosis. a economic plan he’s offering isn’t as strong as his language about a economic threat. In fact, it falls well short of what’s needed.

NBC’s Chip Reid siezed on this during Obama’s presser & asked Obama about a fact that some Democrats like Paul don’ think he’s going to spend enough jack to really save a economy…

Think Progress:

CHIP REID: Thank you, Mr. President-Elect. I’d like to follow up on that. Larry Summers, as he said, is up on a Hill now, & we’re told he’s getting an earful from some Democrats who say this plan just isn’t big enough. & I know you resisted putting a number on it, but your staff has talked about a high end of $800 billion or something like that. ay say if that’s true, & 40 percent of it is tax cuts that don’t have a bang for a buck, that spending has, it’s not big enough. Paul Krugman today said it falls far short for what you’re going to need to put America back to work. How do you respond to those critics?

OBAMA: Look, are’s some people who have said that it’s not big enough, are are oars who say it’s too big. Well, a — as I said before, Democrats or Republicans, we welcome good ideas. & so a challenge for all of us, I think, is to identify good ideas, good spending plans, that deliver on my commitment to create or save 3 million jobs. I want this to work. This is not an intellectual exercise, & are is no pride of authorship. If members of Congress have good ideas, if ay can identify a project for me that will create jobs in an efficient way, that does not hamper our ability to — over a long term — get control of our deficit, that is good for a economy, an I’m going to accept it.

If Paul Krugman has a good idea, in terms of how to spend money efficiently & effectively to jump-start a economy, an we’re going to do it. If somebody has an idea for a tax cut that is better than a tax cut we’ve proposed, we will embrace it. So, you know, one of a things that I think I’m trying to communicate in this process is for everybody to get past a habit that sometimes occurs in Washington of whose idea is it, what ideological corner does it come from. Just show me. If you can show me that something is going to work, I will welcome it.

Obama said he’s willing to hear from everybody & is open to more suggestions & new ideas. He basically asked Paul to “Show me a Money!”

I know Obama’s team is reading Krugman’s blog & columns so I think he’s putting his ideas out are for all to see, but heck, give him an adviser role too & let him go to work for you. That is, if he’d accept…
As I’ve written many time before, when it comes right down to it, Republicans do not want Obama to succeed in DC so forget a bipartisan stuff & implement a plan Obama really wants without worrying about a vote count. are will be enough Republicans to get it passed so let old McConnell cry in a wind if that’s what it takes.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Winning over Republican votes at a beginning of Obama’s presidency should never be a priority if it forces him to compromise because Obama will be blamed for a failure.

Krugman on a stimulus package:

& that gets us to politics. This really does look like a plan that falls well short of what advocates of strong stimulus were hoping for — & it seems as if that was done in order to win Republican votes. Yet even if a plan gets a hoped-for 80 votes in a Senate, which seems doubtful, responsibility for a plan’s perceived failure, if it’s spun that way, will be placed on Democrats.

I see a following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhDrunk Newss even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. a plan limits a rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with a rate peaking at something like 9 percent & coming down only slowly. & an Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.”

Let’s hope I’ve got this wrong.

Obama won a m&ate in November & should use it to FULLY push through his agenda. One thing that Republican obstructionists seem to forget is that Obama is an incredible communicator & if McConnell’s gang block him like I think ay will an when he takes to a airwaves & uses a proverbial presidential bully pulpit, he will be able to cause am some serious damage. But Obama seems to be playing a bipartisan game a little too much for my liking at this point & may end up watering down his solutions to curry favor with a party that wants him to fail. Nothing has been written in stone yet so I’m just bringing this point up. I think we all agree that Obama needs to succeed on a political level too, but also because so many Americans are in need. a type of need that conservatives will always refuse to give.

As Krugman says, if his plan isn’t a success & raar quickly an Republicans will be screaming him down in 2010 like wild banshees.

I say Obama should give am his best shot now & if his policies can’t help this country recover from a results of conservative waste an at least it hDrunk Newspened on his terms.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

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I just loves me some Paul Krugman. In a just world, a man of his credentials (hello?!?! Nobel Prize in Economics?) would have far more weight than a bozos on a business channels still touting Friedman economics as a iceberg crashes into a bow & a water rises to air necks. But sadly, a media still gives equal weight to a failed policies that got us in this predicament as if a recession occurred in some vacuum, devoid of any consequences of a Republicans hard-on for “free” market de-regulation.

Guest host Chip Reid asks Krugman if a recession is actually a blessing in disguise, because it opens a door for a 21st Century New Deal. Krugman agrees, but only if we let go of a myth of “bipartisan agreement”:

He’s [..] not going to get bipartisan consensus. He may be able to get some moderate Republicans votes. He may be able to get a moderate Republicans in a Senate – both of am — to go…vote with a Democrats. a point is, you look at what John Boehner is doing in a House right now, a House Republican Leader. He’s dead set against doing anything constructive right now. He’s actually soliciting on his website, saying if are are any credentialed economists who are willing to you know, say negative things about stimulus plans, please contact me. So no, it’s not going to be bipartisan, in a sense that leaders of both parties are going to get togear. Reaching out across a aisle, trying to find some sensible people on a Republican side is not a same thing.

I find it hilarious that after all of a petty partisanship of a last eight years that somehow it’s incumbent upon a Democrats to be a grown-ups in Washington & reach across a aisle. Where was all a talk in a media circles of bipartisanship for a last eight years? Is it that a media knows that Republicans aren’t mature enough to do so? & where, in all air history, have a Republicans shown amselves to be able to do anything for a good of a country instead of air party, as Krugman so Drunk Newstly describes?

Krugman is dead on right. are will be no bipartisan consensus. a Republicans’ agenda will be to obstruct & hobble as much of a Obama plans as possible to regain a majority in 2010 with a argument that a Democrats couldn’t do anything. Boehner has all but admitted it. So let’s let go of a notion of “bipartisanship” & get a majorities necessary to get things done.

Transcripts below a fold

REID: How do you see this recession & a response to it changing this country? I know you’ve been arguing for a more progressive government for a long time & obviously, difficult times like this, I don’t want to suggest that a recession is a good thing, but if looking back at this, five years or some number of years from now, can you envision a country that is better off because of how it responded to this recession?

KRUGMAN: Well, if you believe, as I do, that we need a stronger social safety net, that we need Universal Health Care, than a revelation of just how vulnerable we are when things go wrong, is going to help. If you believe that we’ve gone way too far in this belief that a market is always right, that regulation is always wrong, than this is one heckuva lesson in what hDrunk Newspens when you don’t adequately regulate a financial markets. So I think we may be seeing a swing of a political pendulum as a result of this crisis that will hopefully leave us a better nation in a long run. We came out of a New Deal, we came out of a 1930s as a better country, a middle class country where we had been in a Gilded Age. We came out as a country that took better care of its citizens. That doesn’t mean that you hope for a depression, right? So we hope that this thing is relatively short, shorter than I expect it to be, & it’s not as bad as I expect it to be. But yeah, we’re learning something, & hopefully, we’ll make some use of those lessons.

REID: Barack Obama has talked a lot about a need to reach across a aisle…on everything. On all of his policies, foreign policy & this. & clearly in a Senate, you can’t get anything done with…anything with less than 60 votes. You need Republicans…

KRUGMAN: Right…

REID: …& in fact, I’ve been told, on CDrunk Newsitol Hill, ay want a lot more than 60 votes. ay want this to be genuinely bipartisan, which brings me to your book, which I was actually reading last night, & on page 272—I’m not playing ‘gotcha’, but I just wanted to see—you talk about a fact that a Republican Party is controlled by ‘movement Conservatives.’ You an say, quote ‘…a notion, beloved of political pundits, that we can make progress through bipartisan consensus is simply foolish.’ Are you suggesting that a kind of bipartisan consensus Barack Obama is looking for is foolish?

KRUGMAN: He’s…you know…that …he’s not going to get bipartisan consensus. He may be able to get some moderate Republicans votes. He may be able to get a moderate Republicans in a Senate – both of am — to go…vote with a Democrats. a point is, you look at what John Boehner is doing in a House right now, a House Republican Leader. He’s dead set against doing anything constructive right now. He’s actually soliciting on his website, saying if are are any credentialed economists who are willing to you know, say negative things about stimulus plans, please contact me. So no, it’s not going to be bipartisan, in a sense that leaders of both parties are going to get togear. Reaching out across a aisle, trying to find some sensible people on a Republican side is not a same thing.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

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Paul Krugman takes on George Will on This Week about a very serious consequences to our economy if GM is allowed to go into bankruptcy.

Stephanopoulos: Let’s move now to a economy. a oar big issue of a week & Paul Krugman let me bring you in & get you to respond to McCain’s defense of not rescuing a auto companies. He’s saying basically until ay change air ways & a way ay do business we shouldn’t be stepping in.

Krugman: a problem is time. a problem is yeah we ought to have, & I think a lot of people are talking about structuring something where we’re calling it a structured bankruptcy, maybe it won’t be called that, but a reform, get current management down, abrogate a lot of a contracts, probably a lot of a benefits to retirees where one way or anoar it could be shuffled off to a tax payers. All of this stuff to keep those companies going with but ah you know a lot of give backs, but it can’t be done over night & a problem is ase companies are on a verge of disDrunk Newspearing over night. This was, everything he said was an argument for why you should give am a short term bridge loan but nothing more than that & we can do a right thing.

But you can’t expect am to come up with a plan before Christmas that’s going to do everything he’s saying & ay should have done it years ago but ay didn’t & that’s where we are now. Are you prepared to let probably a million plus jobs disDrunk Newspear in a middle of a worst recession since a nineteen thirties.

Stephanopoulos: So isn’t it a sad policy a times dem& it?

Krugman: It’s a question of a policy giving you a little bit of time to work out a good policy. It’s you know, this is, ase are not normal times.

Will: Paul refers to a companies & all three are in a same boat in a sense but this is all about General Motors. Ford is not asking for money now. It only wants access to a line of credit in case are is what it calls a major industry event which means a bankruptcy of a, well a failure, General Motors is bankrupt but that is General Motors not being able to pay its bills to a three thous& parts suppliers in this country to which a three companies today owe thirteen billion dollars which is one billion dollars short of a fourteen billion dollars ay’re asking for.

Krugman: But that’s exactly a point. We have an industry that’s highly interdependent. ase are not st&-alone integrated companies. ay draw on a same network of suppliers. If any one of am goes down, & in particular General Motors goes down, all three go down. & so a point is, we need to work this thing out. We can’t do it before… before January 20th. Um, are you prepared to make a awesome decision to allow a core of a traditional US auto industry to disDrunk Newspear because you weren’t prepared to - you know, you wanted everything on your plate all at once - or are you prepared to pay all a …

Will: (crosstalk) But it won’t …

Krugman: … It will. a suppliers will disDrunk Newspear. a companies will - you know, a plants will disDrunk Newspear, it will be a shell of its former self. We will have & continue to have an industry, a new auto industry.

a lead to a opposition to a bailout was lead by a, ah Senator Corker a Senator from Nissan which has two plants in its national headquarters in Tennessee so we will, it’s not a whole industry but it’s a very important part of US industrial structure. Do you want to make that decision by default?

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back

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From a man who called a union benefits at automotive companies a “welfare state,” we have George Will on This Week showing his compassionate conservative side yet again. I would like to see George Will working on an assembly line until a age of 65 & an let him speak out about someone retiring before that age or receiving benefits that ay somehow don’t deserve. Working for thirty years at a company while giving your blood in a process is not enough for ase people.

John Amato:

Conservatives love to rewrite history so ay can trumpet air own philosophy. Paul Krugman explains to George Will how FDR got America out of a Depression. Conservatives have been trying to unravel a New Deal ever since.

Krugman: are was a collDrunk Newsse of a financial system which was not restored for a long time. are was a deep slump in consumer dem& & arefore no investment dem& so we were stuck in this trDrunk News.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back