Obama Aides Signal a Boost in Stimulus Spending

[MannyGoldstein]

Source: The NY Times

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama has signaled that he will pursue a far more ambitious plan of spending and tax cuts than anything he outlined on the campaign trail — a plan "big enough to deal with the huge problem we face,” a top adviser said Sunday — setting the tone for a recovery effort that could absorb and define much of his term.

A member of the Obama economic advisory team, William M. Daley, acknowledged that because of the gravity of the situation, Mr. Obama was leaning toward letting a Bush tax cut for the wealthy expire on schedule in 2011 rather than repealing it sooner.

There were hints Sunday that a stimulus package might be extraordinarily large. Austan Goolsbee, a senior Obama economic adviser, charged that the Bush administration had “dithered” as the economy turned down and suggested that the incoming administration would take dramatic action.

“We’re out with the dithering, we’re in with a bang,” he said on CBS. A senior Democrat, Senator Charles Schumer of New York, said that any package should be as much as $700 billion, equivalent to the recent financial bailout plan.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/us/politics/24transition.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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Watch for it: Obama is going to go hard left. He's stocking up on Clintonistas for two reasons:
1. They have the experience to keep from doing something really stupid at the start.
2. As Rightists, they're best able to poke holes in the agenda-to-be. Either holes get poked before implementation or after, and Obama is smart enough to know that before is much preferred.

[bluestateguy]

1. Letting the tax cuts for the rich simply expire may be better politics

Then he can package his legislation as a tax cut and only a tax cut. Who is going to have the political courage to vote against that? It will pass easily. Then by letting the tax cuts for the rich simply lapse, Congress doesn't have to do anything, or cast any tough roll call votes that can be demagogued in a 30 second ad (that they "voted to raise taxes").

[4lbs]

2. Or he may wait and get all this economic stimulus spending and tax cuts passed first.

Then after almost a year, say, late 2009 or early 2010, he then has Congress pass a bill rescinding Bush's tax cuts. Or he may simply let them expire as normal.

He's got quite a few options.