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Op-Ed Contributor

Hey, Small Spender

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: October 10, 2010

Here’s the narrative you hear everywhere: President Obama has presided over a huge expansion of government, but unemployment has remained high. And this proves that government spending can’t create jobs.
Here’s what you need to know: The whole story is a myth. There never was a big expansion of government spending. In fact, that has been the key problem with economic policy in the Obama years: we never had the kind of fiscal expansion that might have created the millions of jobs we need.

[SNIP]

Actually, the administration has had a messaging problem on economic policy ever since its first months in office, when it went for a stimulus plan that many of us warned from the beginning was inadequate given the size of the economy’s troubles. You can argue that Mr. Obama got all he could — that a larger plan wouldn’t have made it through Congress (which is questionable), and that an inadequate stimulus was much better than none at all (which it was). But that’s not an argument the administration ever made. Instead, it has insisted throughout that its original plan was just right, a position that has become increasingly awkward as the recovery stalls.

And a side consequence of this awkward positioning is that officials can’t easily offer the obvious rebuttal to claims that big spending failed to fix the economy — namely, that thanks to the inadequate scale of the Recovery Act, big spending never happened in the first place.

But if they won’t say it, I will: if job-creating government spending has failed to bring down unemployment in the Obama era, it’s not because it doesn’t work; it’s because it wasn’t tried.

Full article @ NYTimes.com
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Glad to read a very fact-based post by Krugman without drowning usin numbers - he does a good job of that.  What Krugman says about the size of the government reducing in number of jobs was a bit of news to me. But that is welcome new.  

I agree with Paul Krugman.  The Administration has a messaging problem... and has not really done enough of a push on Recovery.  Most of the ARRA money is not yet spent, and the ARRA spend was just not timely nor sizeable enough to create the kind of jobs that needed to be created in a hurry.

The hopium hype never set expectations correct. On top of which, Yes, W did leave the nation in a lurch.  A smarter candidate [like Hillary] knew the problem and continuously focussed on issues.  Did Hillary know that Hope sells? Absolutely! Her husband's campaign was footed on the message of Hope. Hillary was realistic to focus on problems and SOLUTIONS - a far more realistic position.

The Administration has insisted that they have done a great job of holding the "depression" at bay - may be that is entirely accurate.. but the stimulus was insufficient to STIMULATE the economy. All in all, the past two years were huge disappointment over BOTH the message of HOPE and the message of STIMULUS.  Yes, the administration does have a "messaging" problem.  It is one of saying 'mia culpa'- we tried to pull some wool over your eyes as we drowned you in debt... without really getting the results we should have gotten because we did too little too late. 

Can the POTUS-of-Hopium eat humble pie??  If he does, will he then get his halo back on again?