Fiscal Policy: "The Right and the Obvious Thing To Do"

Two things seem relatively clear. First, given the projected baseline for the economy, the previous stimulus package was too small. It was big enough to help, but it won't give anything near the boost the economy needs. Second, the original baseline was far too optimistic.

So I agree:

Fiscal Policy: The Obama Administration Is Not Making Much Sense These Days, by Brad DeLong: ...Last December the Obama administration to be decided on a fiscal stimulus package which they believed would have minor effects on the economy in the first two quarters of 2009 and major effects--would push unemployment down below what it would other wise have been by more than half a percentage point--starting in the third quarter of 2009. They believed that the economy was not that weak, and that with the fiscal stimulus package taking effect unemployment would be peaking now at a rate of 7.9%.

Instead, unemployment is now probably in the 9.5-9.7% range--and without the stimulus package it would right now have turned out to be above 10%:

The financial crisis of last fall hit the economy's levels of production, spending, and employment much harder than people thought at the time. If we had known then what we know now, it would have been prudent then to propose twice as large a fiscal stimulus program as the Obama administration in fact did propose. ...

All in all, it looks like the unemployment rate in 2009 is going to average 1.2 percentage points above where the administration last December thought we would be. ...

It is interesting and important to note that the excess unemployment now forecast over 2009 relative to last December's forecast is of the ... magnitude ... of ... a $170 billion shortfall.

If I were running the government, I would be trying to make up that GDP shortfall right now: I would be rushing a clean $170 billion--$500 per citizen--aid-to-states-that-maintain-effort package through the congress this week. It would seem the right and the obvious thing to do.

At least that much, and the sooner the better.