Posted on 11/17/2011 11:07:38 PM PST by neverdem
NRO's Andrew Stiles flags this exchange from Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf's testimony before the Senate Budget Committee ealier this week:
(Insert video segment)
The quote that matters starts around 1:25, when Elmendorf says that, according to CBO's estimates, with the stimulus legislation in place, "the level of GDP would be a little lower at the end. That is, a net negative effect on the growth of GDP over 10 years." Elmendorf then confirms that CBO estimates that the economic drag will continue in the following decade:
SESSIONS: And in the next 10 years, since you’re carrying that debt and paying interest on it and the stimulus value is long since gone, it would be a continual negative of some effect?ELMENDORF: Yes, it would represent a drag on the level of GDP beyond that, if no other actions were taken.
As with all CBO's projections, you have to take these with a grain of salt, especially when you start looking out two decades into the future. I've been critical of the way folks have used the CBO's stimulus job-creation numbers in the past, and this sort of long-term economic forecasting is not the most precise tool either, to say the least. Counterfactuals—like asking what economic growth would have looked like the absence of the stimulus—probably tell us more about our current economic assumptions than about alternate economic timelines.
Still, it's worth noting, if only because even the mildly Keynesian congressional scorekeeper agrees that borrowing $800 billion dollars ultimately creates a drag on the economy and a net loss in economic performance relative to what otherwise might have been. And yet the administration went ahead with the legislation anyway, arguing that it would be more or less a free lunch in the long run.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Sometimes, despite advanced education, access to the Internet with on line thesauri and dictionaries, and a desire to at least maintain some semblance of intelligence and sophistication I find the word “DUH” fits a given situation better than any other...
The powers that be are happy to screw people like me over, and our futures.
What does 20 years matter to them? They’ve got their’s.
I’m shocked to see someone actually discussing the long term negative effects of this ‘stimulus’. Is that even allowed these days? I’m getting really tired of politicians spending my future on their toys today. Especially when the ‘short term gain’, isn’t something that I’m going to see because I’m not the target!
No problem, we’ll just have another stimulus bill... and another, and another, and another, and another...
The idiots spent our future without our approval and we and our children are stuck paying the consequences.
Incredibly stupid.
And in spite of all that, a good number of these fools want to continue to do more of the same.
Iceland
Iceland let the bank failures run their course and the recovery has begun there.
The defense to any negative long term results is that we are all heartless. The SEIU and other unions will of course see a net positive effect long term. As an added bonus their gratitude to the politicians that fill the unions bank accounts will be renewed.
Very funny and well said. Do you write for ‘The Big Bang Theory?’ LOL
” Add the 1968 like riots coming next spring and summer and will some liberal media genius please explain once again how Obama will be reelected and the Democrats retake the House and increase their hold on the Senate (I’ve actually read this one)?”
Because they plan a sympathy for the black guy vote.
So, what else could they be planning?
(Right wing Christian terrorist shoots at white house calling Obama the antichrist?)
Fine. Now we know that everyone that voted for the stimulus is inept and should be removed from office.
Elmendorf: “Oh yeah. In the long run the proposed stimulus plan sucks bigtime.”
LOL!
I’m swiping that one and filing it away for future use!
Cheers
That’d make a great tagline.
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