John Taylor

'Keep Spending Like Mad or Else' Chorus Grows; Stanford's Taylor Responds; Expect Press to Ignore
By Tom Blumer | February 28, 2011 | 3:11 PM EST

Late last week (covered at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), a Goldman Sachs economist issued a dire warning cutting current-year federal spending by a measly $61 billion, or about 1.75% of the administration's full-year projected spending total, would significantly reduce economic growth in the coming quarters. If this were so, the economy would booming beyond belief right now, given that the Obama administration ran a $800-plus billion so-called stimulus plan during the past two years, and is on track to run up over $4 trillion in reported budget deficits in a three-year period by the end of the current fiscal year. Readers will note that the economy is not booming beyond belief.

The Associated Press chimed in on Friday after the latest report on the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Expert, presumably including some geniuses at Goldman, thought it would be revised up from an annualized 3.2% to 3.3%. Oops; it came in at 2.8%. Befuddled AP reporters claimed incorrectly that reductions in state and local government spending seriously held back reported growth during the final quarter of 2010. Zheesh; the impact was only -0.29 points. The real problem is that private investment is seriously lagging, and has really never stopped lagging since the recession began in 2008.

The "Keep spending like mad or else" chorus got more help today from chief economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics. This morning, the Washington Post's Lori Montgomery dutifully relayed the pile-on (bolds are mine):

GOP spending plan would cost 700,000 jobs, new report says

Barack Backer Dodges On Obama Vote for Bush Energy Bill
By Mark Finkelstein | August 5, 2008 | 5:38 PM EDT

Forget Hardball. Dodgeball's more amusing . . .

As we'll detail below, David Shuster literally laughed in the face of a senior Republican today, and earlier on MSNBC Andrea Mitchell blithely dismissed the McCain energy plan as unrealistic. But there was one point of light, you might say, during the network's afternoon coverage.  When Shuster briefly held a Dem congresswoman's feet to the fire on the question of Obama's vote for the 2005 Bush energy bill, what ensued was one of the more hapless—and ergo entertaining—dodges of the political season. Shuster's guest was Allyson Schwartz, a Dem congresswoman from Pennsylvania.

DAVID SHUSTER: Congresswoman, during the event in Ohio today, Barack Obama attacked the Bush-Cheney energy policy.  But didn't Barack Obama vote for the 2005 Bush-Cheney energy bill?

Schwartz's first foray was the old politician's standby: ignore the embarrassing question and give your canned spiel on something you want to discuss.

View video here.