So what did you guys think? Good speech? Too ambitious? Too vague? Just what we need?
UPDATE: Bloggers and Pundits are all talking about how Jindal seriously bombed last night. Even Malkin hated it. Sullivan has a list of blogger reactions.
25 thoughts on “Open Thread about the Presidential Address”
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Apt. 11d 
I thought he was very clear and reassuring. He simplified the issues in understandable but not condescending ways.
I wake up every morning anticipating that it will be the day Obama will disappoint me. Today was not one of those days.
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Obama’s speech was excellent–a serious, thoughtful, and mostly honest slice of determined progressivism. I liked it, but was troubled by the ambition of the thing. But maybe that’s just my post-Mardi Gras reflections speaking.
Jindal was atrocious beyond words. I mean, seriously…just, holy crap, that was about a bad a speech as I’ve ever seen on prime-time television.
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I thought Obama’s speech was very good. So nice to be able to listen to the president without cringing.
I was shocked at how bad Jindal did. I used to work for him when he was at HHS and while I disagreed with him on almost everything, he was personable and bright, neither of which came across in the speech.
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“I was shocked at how bad Jindal did. I used to work for him when he was at HHS and while I disagreed with him on almost everything, he was personable and bright, neither of which came across in the speech.”
I never watch these things, but the reports about how badly he did are a strong contrast to what he’s supposed to be good at. Gerson has a column in the Post “the Jindal phenom” saying what makes Jindal “hot.” The premise seems to be that he’s a super-smart policy wonk who can talk substantively about many issues (compares him to Bill Clinton), but is not ideologically malleable. I get the impression that he came across as wooden and boring with nothing much to say. But, I guess the Republicans are finding it hard to say much except “No” over and over again.
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“But, I guess the Republicans are finding it hard to say much except “No” over and over again.”
As a plan, it beats the heck out of rushing to borrow and spend a trillion dollars, $3k for every man, woman, and child in the US.
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I am enjoying the volcano backlash. If “volcano monitoring” that is the best example that Bobby Jindal can come up with for wasteful spending, then, well, I guess he can’t come up with any good examples. Does he really think that the private sector will take care of monitoring for natural disasters? I doubt that would be his view on hurricanes!
More laughable, did you see the name of his chief of staff? Timmy Teepell. I kid you not.
Bobby. Timmy. What is going on down there is Louisiana?! Third-graders are apparently running the government.
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Nate Silver:
“If it sounds like Jindal is targeting his speech to a room full of fourth graders, that’s because he is. They might be the next people to actually vote for Republicans again.”
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“As a plan, it beats the heck out of rushing to borrow and spend a trillion dollars, $3k for every man, woman, and child in the US. ”
It’s pretty clear that the majority of American’s disagree. But, the problem with the Repubs “No” is that it doesn’t explain how the “No” is going to help, it *sounds* like the same old same old thing again. I’m pretty unconvincable on the point, but I am willing to hear a wonky argument against a government sponsored injection of cash into the economy is a bad thing. But, Jindal didn’t give it; instead he pulled out trite statements that didn’t sound like they were offering a solution.
There might be those who don’t think there is a solution — that thousands of people had to die in Katrina, because government wasn’t the solution. But, if that’s the point, they need to follow through on that, too, to tell us what human costs we’re going to pay in order to follow the path of No.
And, as others have said, his examples only showed us how Republican governments are bad (i.e. Katrina) rather than how governments are bad at solving problems.
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“As a plan, it beats the heck out of rushing to borrow and spend a trillion dollars, $3k for every man, woman, and child in the US. ”
It’s pretty clear that the majority of American’s disagree. But, the problem with the Repubs “No” is that it doesn’t explain how the “No” is going to help, it *sounds* like the same old same old thing again. I’m pretty unconvincable on the point, but I am willing to hear a wonky argument against a government sponsored injection of cash into the economy is a bad thing. But, Jindal didn’t give it; instead he pulled out trite statements that didn’t sound like they were offering a solution.
There might be those who don’t think there is a solution — that thousands of people had to die in Katrina, because government wasn’t the solution. But, if that’s the point, they need to follow through on that, too, to tell us what human costs we’re going to pay in order to follow the path of No.
And, as others have said, his examples only showed us how Republican governments are bad (i.e. Katrina) rather than how governments are bad at solving problems.
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bj,
What happens when the one trillion doesn’t work? I was just watching a 60 minutes clip over at http://www.circlingvulture.com. The post title the blogger chose for the 60 minutes clip is Mortgage Meltdown: 2nd Wave Yet to Arrive. Anyway, it’s a very nice little video piece, and one of the experts interviewed shows a chart with mortgage reset dates. Subprime is just about done resetting and 2009 is going to be relatively quiet. However, the chart says that Alt-A and Option ARMS are starting to reset, and more and more of them will be resetting in 2010 and 2011. I don’t know what happens in 2012. Anyway, another expert they interviewed says that the glut of US homes won’t clear for another 3-5 years from now.
With that sort of forecast, we can expect the US economy to be depressed for years. Do we keep borrowing and spending a trillion dollars on stimulus every three to six months until the recession is over? Does a lack of recovery mean that we just haven’t borrowed enough money yet? How will we know when to stop? Or do the beatings continue until morale improves?
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Amy, you’re still being nothing more than a naysayer. Tell me how *no* stimulus plan doesn’t result in a 6 year recession (or Japan’s lost decade)? I’ve said this before, but doing nothing is not the neutral path. Doing nothing has costs (like 3000 dead in New Orleans). Doing nothing has to be justified. The Repubs sonud like they’re not saying anything because they’re not telling us why doing nothing would be a better solution. No amount of tearing down the chosen option shows that any other option is preferable. You have to do that directly. The Republicans are so set in the mentality that doing something has costs that they ignore the costs of doing nothing (and loose the ability to influence the future).
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At least the way I hear it, the Japanese stimulated their way right into 180% of GDP national debt. They had a decade and a half of misery, built bridges and public buildings like crazy, and were just turning the corner economically when the current troubles started. I don’t know much about the situation there, but you really cannot use the Japanese as an example of the danger of doing nothing. Just this month, the NYT published an article on the outcome of Japan’s stimulus efforts.
“Japan’s rural areas have been paved over and filled in with roads, dams and other big infrastructure projects, the legacy of trillions of dollars spent to lift the economy from a severe downturn caused by the bursting of a real estate bubble in the late 1980s. During those nearly two decades, Japan accumulated the largest public debt in the developed world — totaling 180 percent of its $5.5 trillion economy — while failing to generate a convincing recovery.”
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Amy, that’s because the stimulus money was not properly directed. You don’t spend for the sake of spending. You invest. And I have to say, the fact that Obama is influenced by Buffett is a good thing here. I was reading about Buffett’s approach to investing, and it basically says that you have to know what you’re investing in. I think Obama knows, or is thinking about what will reap returns for the future.
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If the stimulus being properly directed is so important, why did the bill have to go through Congress so quickly?
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“If the stimulus being properly directed is so important, why did the bill have to go through Congress so quickly? ”
Because it also had to be “economic shock therapy”, “one big push to pump up the economy.”
Fascinating article, but it certainly doesn’t argue that the Japanese shouldn’t have tried stimulus plan:
“In hindsight, Japan should have built public works that address the problems it faces today, like aging, energy and food sources,”
“Found that every 1 trillion yen, or about $11.2 billion, spent on social services like care for the elderly and monthly pension payments added 1.64 trillion yen in growth. Financing for schools and education delivered an even bigger boost of 1.74 trillion yen, the report found.”
“every 1 trillion yen spent on infrastructure projects in the 1990s increased Japan’s gross domestic product, a measure of its overall economic size, by only 1.37 trillion yen, ”
Interesting, though, that the part of the stimulus plan that the Republicans are most likely to support are the least weakly supported (the building bridges/roads). I do think the deferred maintenance in the US might make the situation different in the US (as cited in the article as well).
Also, they quote a Japanese economist as saying that it’s not enough to “dig holes and fill them in” as an allusion to Keynes, but I think what they’re really saying is that it’s not good to dig holes and leave big gaping holes in your landscape. We should try to avoid that. But, otherwise, spending money seems the way to go, as long as we avoid that one thing.
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You guys may have already seen it, but Megan McArdle has a new post up where she quotes Krugman as saying that what the US is doing with its banks (“half-measures to keep banks open rather than disciplined”) is what the Japanese were doing with theirs from 1992 to 1998.
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/02/lost.php
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“I do think the deferred maintenance in the US might make the situation different in the US (as cited in the article as well).”
Amen to that. There is a bridge near my house that is dropping chunks of concrete down on the parkway below. They “fixed” it by building a steel roof over the parkway. This was right after I arrived and I foolishly though that the steel roof was a pre-cursor to fixing or replacing the bridge above. Probably needed to save money because it had been a couple of months since Sen. Byrd had a lightly traveled stretch of four-lane highway named after himself.
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A very conservative friend of mine was just quoting from StimulusWatch.org about all the projects in her city that are pork. Reading bits of the site, here is what I’ve picked up.
The stimulus bill had to happen soon so money could *start* to move. It will never move all in one big whoosh once the details have been ironed out. Now that it’s passed, Biden and Earl Devaney can start moving that money. They’re relying in part on lists of “shovel-ready” projects generated by mayors, apparently (maybe governors, too?). Some of the projects will be obvious to support, and the money can be moved now. Other projects will have to be looked at carefully and perhaps rejected.
My friend was up in arms over some sort of methane thing at one of the zoos in her city. I doubt that kind of project will get stimulus money, though. Maybe it will; maybe the pork thing is just too powerful. But there is nothing, afaict, that says that the money is going right there right now. The Community Grant Programs thingies are administering some parts, and I think what Obama is saying is that he’s going to try to have better oversight of these projects via Biden and Devaney. That’s certainly what Biden is signalling.
Let’s see if they can follow through. If they can’t do it, maybe it can’t be done.
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“My friend was up in arms over some sort of methane thing at one of the zoos in her city.”
Zoos smell funny anyway, so they may as well keep the methane there.
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Or, as I said to my wife, “We’re in the Monkey House. If you still smell something outside, then we should check the diaper.”
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You guys may already have seen it, but Felix Salmon hands Megan McArdle her head on a plate in a discussion about mortgages.
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2009/02/25/the-truth-about-mortgages
Note to self: Do not get in an argument with Salmon unless v v sure of all facts and implications.
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“I think what Geithner et. al. fear is that nationalizing or reorganization will put the government on the hook for massive and immediate losses in both the banking system, and the “safe” entities that lent it money.”
when McCardle & Krugman agree, it seems like we have to listen, no? I think one of the NYtimes articles also quoted an American Enterprise Institute (?) prison saying that we have to nationalize the banks. Maybe that’s something for the Repubs to concentrate on — some of their own plans for fixing the banking crisis.
Because there, the Repubs don’t have the solution of not doing anything, since deposits to banks are insured by the government, the government will be on the hook for mucho bucks, even if hey don’t do anything. I’m guessing, in fact, that the Repub disinclination to anything is the reason why we tied that hand after/during the Great Depression, so that doing nothing and letting the banking system collapse is not an option.
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Salmon says:
“I was going to get into the whole issue of other, non-mortgage deductions, but didn’t; suffice to say that yes, they matter, but in the grand scheme of things all you need to do is look at the number of people who itemize anything (they’re very few, and they’re rich, and they’re overwhelmingly in New York and California) to see how little this issue matters to Middle America.”
I’m going to disregard Doug’s advice about Salmon.
Here’s the problem with the sentence I just quoted: it ignores the fact that “But think of the mortgage interest deduction!” has entered into American personal finance folklore. Even if in the cold light of day, few people actually itemize, the interest deduction is popularly regarded as a major reason to buy a house. I listen to a lot of personal finance radio, and at least a year or two ago, you’d hear a lot of people bring up the deduction as a reason not to aggressively pay off their house.
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It would probably be giving the photo editor too much credit to suggest that this was a snarky selection?
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Megan McArdle now has a link up to a piece about some odd activity by Treasury.
“Treasury announced this morning that it would be bailing out Citibank exercising its option to convert $25 billion of preferred stock in Citigroup to common stock at a value of $3.25 per share. Since shares closed at $2.42 yesterday, this seemed rather generous. At the current price of $1.55 per share, it seems positively extravagent. As Felix Salmon points out, this is a gift worth about $13 billion to Citibank.”
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