Why should Americans believe the folks who missed it last time, for a strategy that is going to borrow about $12,000 per American child?

"...We should keep in mind President Obama's governing assumption about the economy,
which is that we are in a recovery that is just not proceeding as fast as we need it to.

...If his assumption is correct, a stimulus -- any stimulus,
even one he acknowledges is inadequate or based on the wrong kind of measure
-- that gets us through the next few months
 until the economy "turns around" and "gets moving again"
is a victory.

The problem comes about if it turns out
Obama's governing assumption about the economy is not correct.

In that case,
what he has just agreed to is a massive transfer of private sector debt to the public sector,
and a prolonged period that will see many millions of hitherto middle class Americans
in great economic distress while the federal government does nothing
-- beyond sending out unemployment checks...

The people advising Obama on economic affairs
did not think the financial crisis two years ago would be as bad as it was,
and did not foresee unemployment and underemployment rising to the levels we see today.

This does not guarantee they are wrong about a recovery that just hasn't moved fast enough.

Nor does the historical fact that recessions following asset price crashes
tend to take much longer to turn around than cyclical recessions
like those of twenty and thirty years ago.

The evidence, though, suggests that Obama's hopeful talk
about what the tax cut compromise means
contains a very large component of wishful thinking
-- not just about the politics, but also about the economy."

JB