Congressional Budget Office: Obama's Spendulus Will Actually Harm Economy; Doing Nothing is Preferable

Excuse me -- wasn't this supposed to be a new era of listening to experts rather than ignoring them in favor of our own faith-based ideological impulses?

Not so much I guess.

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.

CBO estimates that by 2019 the Senate legislation would reduce GDP by 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent on net. [The House bill] would have similar long-run effects, CBO said in a letter to Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican, who was tapped by Mr. Obama on Tuesday to be Commerce Secretary.

Via the Corner.

Incidentally, I missed the key point of Martin Feldstein's opposition to the spendulus. Although Feldstein ran that op-ed in the WSJ last week, Chuckie Schumer was still talking up this "conservative economist's" support of Obama's bill... on the Senate floor today.

Congressional Budget Office: Obama's Spendulus Will Actually Harm Economy; Doing Nothing is Preferable&bodytext=Excuse me -- wasn't this supposed to be a new era of listening to experts rather than ignoring them in favor of our own faith-based ideological impulses? Not so much I guess. President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 02:52 PM

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