Re: Obama on fiscal policy


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(email exchange)

And how about this:

Obama: costly stimulus needed to jolt U.S. economy

By Jeff Mason and Ross Colvin

Obama said the country would see a substantial budget deficit next year, which he described as “bigger than we’ve seen in a very long time.”

“American taxpayers are understandably concerned, if we already have a big deficit, and now we’re added an additional stimulus, how are we going to pay for all that?” he said.

“The right answer is that we have to first focus on getting the economy back on track.”

Obama said he would discuss steps toward a “sustainable and responsible budget scenario” at a news conference on Tuesday at which he is expected to announce further members of his economic team.

“We’ll have to scour our federal budget, line by line, and make meaningful cuts and sacrifices, as well, something I’ll be discussing further tomorrow,” he said.

>   
>   On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 5:41 PM, Scott wrote:
>   
>   Looks like Obama wanted her precisely because of her work on the
>   history of the depression and WWII era, and her work at NBER
>   analyzing business cycles. So far, everyone on the team (except I
>   don’t know Geithner’s views on this, but assume he’s pretty
>   mainstream) views long run deficits as bad for interest rates, capital,
>   and growth. Not good, but they may never get the chance to worry
>   about the long run in that case!
>   


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