Hope and Fail

Claiming, again, that all economists supported stimulus package

President Obama today again said "no economists" disagreed with the stimulus package, even though at least 200 publicly opposed it back in January.

Repeating a line he used during the first two months of his term, President Obama said in a phone interview with the Washington Post today that “there was no economist out there who thought we didn’t need to do” the stimulus package.

From the Post:

The reason that it hasn’t been at the forefront of my agenda is because I walked in when we were about to slip into the Great Depression — or the next Great Depression. And so I had to start off, coming out of the box, with a recovery package that, whatever arguments may be made by the critics at this point, there was no economist out there who thought we didn’t need to do, and a portion of that was just stabilization funds for states and tax cuts that were uncontroversial.

“No economists” except for the 200 that placed prominent ads with an open letter to the president against the stimulus bill.

Also from the Post:

The conservative Cato Institute plans to buy full-page ads in The Washington Post and New York Times over the next several days urging President Obama to avoid what it considers excessive government spending as a way to get the U.S. out of recession.

In the form of a letter to Obama, the ad is signed by some 200 economists, including three Nobel laureates — Edward Prescott and George Mason’s Vernon Smith and James Buchanan — listed prominently at the top.

Its point: Not everyone agrees that massive government spending — say, Obama’s $825 billion stimulus plan — is the right way out of recession.

The Cato ad opens with a Jan. 9 quote from Obama:

“There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help jumpstart the economy.”

The economists respond: “With all due respect, Mr. President, that is not true.”

With all due respect, Mr. President, that is still not true.

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