How Stimulating

A number of people are impressed by Barack Obama's economic advisor Austan Goolsbee, but watching him on TV recently, all I saw was the same demagoguery I hoped we'd be getting rid of. Listen to this selection:

And so the thing is, we’ve had a period, under this administration, where they resisted the idea of economic recovery. The approach has been, let’s, sort of, look the other way and things will get better.

We’ve tried not having a stimulus. We’ve tried not having a housing plan. We’ve tried not giving tax cuts to ordinary Americans. And it hasn’t worked. I mean, look out the window. That’s where it is. And so that’s -- kind of, that era of dithering is going to end. Starting January 20, Obama’s coming in. We’re out with the dithering. We’re in with a bang. That’s what it’s got to be.

"They resisted the idea of economic recovery"? Too silly to refute.

But the part about we tried not having a stimulus? Let's leave aside Yoda-like questions of how you can try not to do things. All the Bush administration has tried to do for the past couple months is have a stimulus (and it wasn't their first). As for tax cuts, Bush gave them to everyone who paid taxes, with the biggest cut going to the lowest bracket.

I was hoping for a reasonable discussion from Goolsbee, but all I'm hearing is "no one really knows what to do, but we're going to give the appearance of doing an awful lot, and hope we catch a break--and while we plan to do almost exactly what Bush is doing, nevertheless, since the one thing we know that works is saying Bush is at fault, we're going to claim we're doing the opposite."

PS. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the best plan is to look the other way until things get better.