Actually, Quite A Few Economists Oppose The Stimulus Package

Obama keeps claiming that most economists agree that a massive spending bill is needed to help America out of the recession.

Yet, The Patriot Room reports today, that Harvard Economist, Dr. Robert Barro, one of the most influential economists in the world is not at all impressed with The $1,000,000,000,000 (let’s just say infinity at this point) Porkulus/Patronage Bill.

This is probably the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s. I don’t know what to say. I mean it’s wasting a tremendous amount of money. It has some simplistic theory that I don’t think will work, so I don’t think the expenditure stuff is going to have the intended effect. I don’t think it will expand the economy. And the tax cutting isn’t really geared toward incentives. It’s not really geared to lowering tax rates; it’s more along the lines of throwing money at people. On both sides I think it’s garbage. So in terms of balance between the two it doesn’t really matter that much.

And The Congressional Budget Office has been saying that the “stimulus”  will be harmful over the long haul.

And The Cato Institute published a full-page ad in the New York Times

with the names of  200 economists, including some Nobel laureates and other highly respected scholars, who “do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance” — contrary to widespread claims that “Economists from across the political spectrum agree” on a massive fiscal stimulus package. Of course, many economists don’t like to sign joint statements, so this is only a fraction of stimulus opponents in the profession.

What more, Cato reported on Feb 3:

People like Robert Reich, who try to back up the claims of President Obama and Vice President Biden that “economic advisers across the political spectrum support Obama’s plan,” have managed to come up with two names of economists who support the stimulus plan and would not be regarded as left of center: Martin Feldstein of Harvard, a former top economic adviser to President Reagan, and Mark Zandi of Moody’s, who was an adviser to John McCain last fall. And now the Washington Post has blown both of those names out of the water. Leaving — by my count — exactly zero libertarian or conservative economists on that much-touted spectrum. As the Post notes this morning:

Democrats lost Feldstein on Thursday when the Harvard professor published a Washington Post op-ed declaring the House bill “an $800 billion mistake” laden with ineffective provisions.

Zandi, it turns out is a registered Democrat.

Many more  economists who are against the bill were noted in this CBS News report from Jan. 28 which admits:

You may have heard that respectable economists, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, say stimulus spending should be high or higher. But some news organizations have been less than diligent in telling you that other respectable economists are deeply skeptical of the idea, flatly oppose it or favor competing proposals such as additional tax relief.

News organizations “less than diligent?” You don’t say. Huh. Maybe that’s why Obama, and his acolytes  keep repeating the lie.

Another lie I’m getting sick of hearing:

– That there’s no pork – “there are no earmarks in this package”.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air calls Obama out on this repeated  assertion. Heck, even the friggen’ A.P. has called him out on that one.

…the stimulus bill is essentially an Omnibus Earmark Package.  It consists entirely of local and state projects that would normally only get funded as earmarks on other appropriations.  Even the Associated Press calls shenanigans on this claim:

THE FACTS: There are no “earmarks,” as they are usually defined, inserted by lawmakers in the bill. Still, some of the projects bear the prime characteristics of pork – tailored to benefit specific interests or to have thinly disguised links to local projects.

See Ed Morrissey again, for still  more lies from Obama’s Presser.

When Barack Obama explained his economic package last night to the American people in a prime-time press conference, he made two flat-out false statements regarding his opposition.  He also added a completely incorrect reading of history, one that turns out to be very instructive about his own economic incompetence.

Just words.

MORE:

Obama puts the Republicans in Congress on the defensive when he charges them with wanting to “do nothing”, (which is, of course, a lie). But, there is a very credible school of thought that believes that doing nothing, and letting the recession run its course, is preferable to this suicidal stimulus bill. Another economist who doesn’t agree with Obama, explains.

UPDATE:

Another Economist speaks out, via Mark Hemingway at The Corner:

This morning the Heritage Foundation, in conjunction with the Club for Growth, held a conference on the supposed stimulus bill. Here’s what one of the speakers, CATO Economist Arnold Kling, had to say about the Democrat’s economic plans:

“I think about the stimulus as an economist but I feel it as a father. Barack Obama is destroying my daughters future. It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs. That’s how I feel, now back to how I think.”

The event was liveblogged on Heritage’s blog, The Foundry. There’s a lot more on the event there.

That’s how I feel, too.

UPDATE II:

Another economist, (an attractive one) can be seen at Hot Air talking up her alternative idea to the “Stimulus”.

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