Quotes of the day

“No one knows the economic effects of all this; estimates vary. But Obama’s political strategy stunts the impact from what it might have been. By using the stimulus for unrelated policy goals, spending will be delayed and diluted. There’s another downside: ‘Temporary’ spending increases for specific programs, as opposed to block grants, will be harder to undo, worsening the long-term budget outlook.

Politics cannot be removed from the political process. But here, partisan politics ran roughshod over pragmatic economic policy. Token concessions (including the AMT provision) to some Republicans weakened the package. Obama is gambling that his flawed stimulus will seem to work well enough that he’ll receive credit for restarting the economy — and not be blamed for engineering a colossal waste.”

*
“Another Maryland resident concurs: ‘I am an Obama supporter, campaigned for him, baked cookies for him; my husband and I are Democrats all the way, but this is the issue that gets our goat.’

Echoing Santelli’s complaint, a Silver Spring, Md., mom who did not want her name used adds: ‘I’m not sure why we should work and pay for someone else to have a granite countertop or an extra bathroom.’

When asked about people who hadn’t overreached but had lost their down-­payment money when the value of their homes had dropped, she replies, ‘We put money in a 401(k), and we lost that money, and no one is going to give it back.’”

*
“But even if the stimulus is a magnificent success, the money still has to be paid back. The plan of record apparently is that we keep borrowing, spending and stimulating, faster and faster, until suddenly, on some signal from heaven or Timothy Geithner, we all stop spending and start saving in recordbreaking amounts. Oh sure, that will work.

There is another way. If it’s not the actual, secret plan, it will be an overwhelming temptation: Don’t pay the money back…

Anyone who regards the prospect of double-digit inflation with insouciance is either too young to have lived through it the last time (the late 1970s) or too old to remember. Among other problems, inflation works only as a surprise or betrayal. It can never be part of any public, official plan. Plan for 10 percent inflation, and you’ll get 20. Plan for 20 and you’ll need a wheelbarrow to pay for your morning Starbucks. But if that’s not the plan, what is?”

*
“I thought 8,000 was the floor, and it looks like 6,000 is the floor. People are angry, I’m getting angry.”

Blowback