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Call it what you will, but it's not a stimulus
Betsy's Page —
David Brooks lays out all that is wrong with this turkey of a bill that the House Democrats have put together. There is almost nothing in it that will stimulate the economy now. The bill has three essential failings. First, it lacks any strategic vision. This $825 billion bill has to be passed within weeks. Thereâs no time for fundamental rethinking or new approaches. Instead, thereâs a sloppy profusion of 152 different appropriations â off-the-shelf ideas that mostly create costlier versions of the status quo. The committee staff took the kernel of President Obamaâs ...
Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up
Daily Kos —
Friday is a good day for punditry. And today's pundits definitely have a theme. Paul Krugman: The economic program could have been brilliant. Instead, it's too conventional and it just might suck. David Brooks: The stimulus bill could have been brilliant. Instead, it's a rush job and it already sucks. Steven Perlstein: Analysis of what ails the economy is too simplistic, and most of the proposed solutions suck. So does much of the analysis. Ruth Marcus: Our long national CK soap opera is over. And you know, I ...
Progressive Breakfast: Empty Criticisms Of Econ Recovery
LiberalOasis : The Blog —
... in mind is that if these are projects that are otherwise valuable, then the portion that does take place when the economy is in a depressed state is in effect free. At the moment, the economy's problem is too little demand. If the government spends less money right now it doesn't mean that more resources go to investment, exports or some other use. It means that more people go unemployed."
Meanwhile conservatives continue to try to make hay of the CBO report, including perennially silly, whiplash-inducing David Brooks, who lambastes the House proposal after ...
Obama reminds GOP in stimulus meeting: “I won”
Hot Air » Top Picks —
... some sort of stimulus. Just how rancid is this crap sandwich, anyway? Even David Brooks thinks it’s too much of a liberal Christmas tree: This $825 billion bill has to be passed within weeks. There’s no time for fundamental rethinking or new approaches. Instead, there’s a sloppy profusion of 152 different appropriations — off-the-shelf ideas that mostly create costlier versions of the status quo. The committee staff took the kernel of President Obama’s vision — infrastructure programs to create jobs — and surrounded it with an undisciplined sprawl of health, education, ...
Limbaugh: Obama should have invited “genuine conservatives” to dinner
Hot Air » Top Picks —
... . I’m amused that Hannity names David Brooks as an example of a right-wing antagonist on a day when Brooks, more than anyone else who was at that dinner, is holding The One’s feet to the fire about what a piece of shinola the stimulus bill is. The other attendees, like ...
Obama: Um, I know some of you are skeptical about spending a trillion dollars
Hot Air » Top Picks —
... website, to push those numbers even higher. Anything missing here, though? Any crucial pieces of information politely omitted lest they jeopardize the bill — besides, I mean, the fact that it’s brimming with pork and that it’s viewed by at least some prominent Obama advisors as a crude vehicle for ...
Obama’s Right-Wing Dinner Friends Rip His Stimulus Package: Worst Bill In ‘Galactic History’
Think Progress —
... David Brooks: “It is an unholy marriage that manages to combine the worst of each approach — rushed short-term planning with expensive long-term fiscal impact.” [New York Times, 1/23/09] ...
GOP Leaders, Including McCain, Reject Stimulus Plan
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed —
... of Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer bashing the stimulus. David Brooks also weighed in with a column on January 23rd, calling it an "unholy marriage that manages to combine the worst of each approach." Apparently Obama's conservative dinner party was not as effective as he would have hoped. Watch the video below. ...
GOP Leaders, Including McCain, Reject Stimulus Plan
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com —
... of Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer bashing the stimulus. David Brooks also weighed in with a column on January 23rd, calling it an "unholy marriage that manages to combine the worst of each approach." Apparently Obama's conservative dinner party was not as effective as he would have hoped. Watch the video below. ...
Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: "$223,000 to create a single job"
Doug Ross @ Journal —
... : Long War Journal The First Test : David Brooks This $825 billion bill has to be passed within weeks. There’s no time for fundamental rethinking or new approaches. Instead, there’s a sloppy profusion of 152 different appropriations — off-the-shelf ideas that mostly create costlier versions of the status quo. The committee staff took the kernel of President Obama’s vision — infrastructure programs to create jobs — and surrounded it with an undisciplined sprawl of health, education, entitlement and other spending. There’s money for nurse training, Medicare, Head Start, ...
Conservative Media Can’t Get Enough of Non-Existent CBO Report
Matthew Yglesias —
On C-SPAN yesterday, my opponent naturally brought up the Congressional Budget Office report that dismisses the stimulus plan as too slow to be effective. Today, The Wall Street Journal has an editorial based on the report. And The Washington Times’s Donald Lambro does the same. And David Brooks did the same on Friday. But as Ryan Grim has reported there is no such CBO report! This is just a zombie notion bopping around the rightosphere being endlessly repeated by people who haven’t read the report. You know they ...
Holding Obama Accountable on Stimulus
The Next Right —
... Right now both the blogs and the media are hitting the "Nothing Temporary About This Stimulus Spending" message. David Brooks is on board. ...
Obama's First Test
The New Editor —
David Brooks:
On Tuesday, President Obama was inaugurated and vowed a new era. On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee met and showed the old era was very much alive. Democratic subcommittee chairmen sat like potted plants because all power was wielded by Chairman Obey. Republicans were in the dark because of an information embargo placed on the majority staff.
President Obama is clearly going to have to show the hard way that he meant what he said about bringing change. He didn’t run for president just to sign whatever bills the Old Bulls ...
Conservatives Prepare to Abandon Newfound Love for CBO
Matthew Yglesias —
... Last week, referring to the non-existent report, David Brooks wrote that Obama’s “going to have to prove the hard way that he meant what he said about being pragmatic and evidence-based. That means he won’t sweep a C.B.O. study under the rug simply because the findings are inconvenient.” My guess is that few conservative legislators and no conservative New York Times columnists will wind up meeting the Brooks Test in this regard. ...
Anatomy of a Fraud
TPMCafe —
... For a week or more, conservatives have been touting a Congressional Budget Office report said to criticize the Obama spending proposal on the ground that little of the proposed stimulus would get to work quickly. David Brooks was especially impressed, devoting a column to the subject and promoting this ostensible CBO finding on Friday's NewsHour, while Jim Lehrer sagely nodded and Mark Shields let the matter pass. ...
Chris Norwood: Our Frankenstein Stimulus Plan
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com —
... What we get, in the outraged summary of David Brooks, is "a sloppy profusion of 152 appropriations...that mostly create costlier versions of the status quo." ...
Do Republicans still love the CBO?
Political Animal —
... a week ago, "The analysis is sure to add important momentum to the effort to enact an $825 billion stimulus by mid-February." It might have added some important momentum, except CBO analyses carry more weight with Republicans when they tell the minority party what it wants to hear. The New York Times ' David Brooks wrote last week that the president is "going to have to prove the hard way that he meant what he said about being pragmatic and evidence-based. That means he won't sweep a C.B.O. study under the rug simply because the findings are inconvenient." What an ...
Hey Pundits, Why The Long Face?
The Atlantic Politics Channel —
... master, Krauthammer now blasts an "Obamaist Manifesto."
George Will: Never persuaded by the promise of national consensus, Will
lambastes the administration's multi-facted, dithering approach to the
crisis.
MODERATES
Andrew Sullivan: Once full of hope, he has recoiled at the budget. Cracks in Sullivan's Obamaphile armor are beginning to show.
David Brooks: Never persuaded by the president, but now he's had enough
of the "über-partisan" spending ...
The GOP's fleeting love for the CBO
Political Animal —
... now we are reading the reports that have come out this week that CBO has now reduced its cost estimate to say that it is only $160 that families will be impacted by the cap and trade bill. I think that now CBO has now entered the realm of losing its credibility." Um, congressman? If you believe the CBO when it tells you what you want to hear, and reject it when it delivers bad news, it's not the Congressional Budget Office that "losing credibility." In January, the New York Times ' David Brooks wrote that President Obama is "going to have to prove the hard way that he meant ...
