Stimulus Plan Was Pointless

Courtesy of Greg Mankiw's blog.

Recall the plan was passed to address an "irreversible" decline in the economy. Just this weekend Peter Orszag, Obama's head of OMB, said "the free-fall seemed to be over." However, the stim:

• Underperformed its own objectives.
• Accomplished what doing nothing would have accomplished

which of course means our problems weren't irreversible and we're no better off, so far, for having passed the stim (the drafting of which was outsourced to Congressional leadership and almost no one in either house read in its entirety). I wrote before I wasn't opposed to a stim, just the one they passed. Turns out the administration could have taken more time (and there were sober voices requesting just that) and drafted a plan more stimulative and less political.

Please don't argue that the stim will eventually work as intended. That's a tough sell when a basic premise (irreversibility) has been debunked this quickly. Obama's a smart, practical guy, right? Certainly he could recognize his plan's shortcomings and rework it. He won't, but he could.

No politics as usual here.