"I happen to believe in the people and believe that the people are supposed to be dominant in our society. That they, not government, are to have control of their own affairs to the greatest extent possible with an orderly society." - Ronald Reagan

Exactly.

Posted: July 7th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: National | 1 Comment »

Interviewing with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Vice President Biden declared, “The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy.”  Exactly.  Exactly.

The stimulus plan had broad support, if not the universal consensus claimed here by Biden and previously by President Obama.  The projections were prepared and endorsed by men and women at the top of their field.  Geniuses.  Nobel laureates.  And they were wrong.

Doubtless many will argue that the spending has had a net positive effect, that they just misjudged the baseline.  There may be some truth to that.  Others will argue the bulk of the stimulus hasn’t happened yet, that it was always a long game proposition.  That isn’t how it was sold, but it’s certainly how it’s played out so far.  Still others say the whole idea of a stimulus was misguided, or that it should have included more tax cuts, or that it was too large, or that it was too small.

The details don’t matter.  The bottom line is that incredibly smart, eminently qualified people aren’t omniscient, even in aggregate.  That strikes me as a powerful reason not to bet hundreds of billions that they are.


One Comment on “Exactly.”

  1. #1 Priya said at 11:56 pm on October 12th, 2012:

    The best solution would just be to cut taxes acsros the board, especially corporate taxes so they will begin to hire again. We currently have the highest corporate taxes in the world, which explains why companies are moving over seas.And Wall Street is not betting on the stimulus. The market is down almost 400 points after the bill passed in the senate with only 3 republicans voting for it.One day we’ll look back at the glory days of the Bush administration when the stock market was at its peak of 14,000. Now it’s below 8,000.


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