The efficacy of government spending as opposed to tax cuts is beyond dispute.

And, given that any so-called stimulus will undoubtedly "have to be" offset by spending cuts of an equal amount, I fail to see how this is going to spur hiring, or demand.

I have absolutely zero hope or confidence or expectation that this administration will formulate or advocate for any policy that makes sense for the economy, or that will improve the quality of life that has, for far too many people, been steadily declining.

I can't wait to see what kind of damage they will do via the debt ceiling "negotiations."

He raised taxes and obliterated the deficit.

By the end of his second term, there was a surplus.

When you "make your own reality," you can say anything and the bobb'n head ditto's just go into their auto-pilot, spasdic head nodding.

Glenn:

But it's the article on Obama's efforts to re-woo the Wall Street tycoons who funded much of his 2008 campaign that is particularly revealing, as it highlights the real election taking place:

Last month, Mr. Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, traveled to New York for back-to-back meetings with Wall Street donors, ending at the home of Marc Lasry, a prominent hedge fund manager, to court donors close to Mr. Obama's onetime rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. And Mr. Obama will return to New York this month to dine with bankers, hedge fund executives and private equity investors at the Upper East Side restaurant Daniel.

"The first goal was to get recognition that the administration has led the economy from an unimaginably difficult place to where we are today," said Blair W. Effron, an investment banker closely involved in Mr. Obama's fund-raising efforts. "Now the second goal is to turn that into support" . . . .

Members of the president's economic team and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, a former banking executive, have been more active in reaching out to Wall Street executives about policy issues, donors said.

One Democratic financier invited to this month's dinner, who asked for anonymity because he did not want to anger the White House, said it was ironic that the same president who once criticized bankers as "fat cats" would now invite them to dine at Daniel, where the six-course tasting menu runs to $195 a person.

Glenn again:

While millions upon millions of Americans continue to suffer greatly under the country's ongoing economic woes without any end in sight, the Obama years have, indeed, been very, very good to this tiny constituency of wealth he's now eagerly courting.  And with a Chief of Staff like Bill Daley and a Treasury Secretary like Tim Geithner, it's hard to imagine this effort triggering anything other than ultimate success.

Oh, yay!  Success!

You might have thought that an ideology that failed so dramatically would have been to at least some extent abandoned. But noooo: belief in tax-cut magic is central to the Ryan plan, and aspiring GOP candidates like Pawlenty seem to be in a race to see who can go more overboard in supply-side faith. Oh, and if you don't believe their claims, you don't trust the American people.

What will it take before the GOP drops voodoo as its official religion?

Warning

The following link may not be suitable for all members of the Tea Party.

"the results in Valerie Ramey's research suggest a government spending multiplier of about 1.4."

"By contrast, recent research by Christina Romer and David Romer looks at tax changes and concludes that the tax multiplier is about three: A dollar of tax cuts raises GDP by about three dollars."

"Suppose, for example, that tax cuts are not lump-sum but instead take the form of cuts in payroll taxes (as suggested by Bils and Klenow). This tax cut would reduce the cost of labor and, if labor and capital are complements, increase the demand for capital goods. Thus, the tax cut stimulates demand not only by increasing disposable income and consumption spending (the textbook Keynesian channel) but also by incentivizing more investment spending. A similar result might obtain if the tax cut included, say, an investment tax credit."

is precisely the problem with how the government uses tax cuts as stimulus. Tax cuts cannot be stimulative if they are offset by spending cuts. And since tax cuts in America are always targeted at the rich, and offset by spending cuts that benefit the middle class and poor, it's just wealth transfer to those that have more from those that have less.

I would favor tax cuts if they were targeted at the low end of the economic spectrum, not the high end. Basically the first $60k of income should be tax free.

However you are assuming that all Tax Cuts will have to be balanced by corresponding spending cuts. That appears to be the message of the Tea Party, but the GOP establishment still loves tax cuts so much they will in the end always go for a deal with a 2 year Employee side payroll tax holiday (with corresponding Treasury Bonds deposited into the Social Security Trust Fund) even without any near term spending cuts : they might insist on long-term spending cuts, but the net result could still create the Fiscal Stimulus needed to create jobs. Throw in some Corporate Tax cuts (to make US corporate tax rates competetive with the rest of the world) and you would have a deal from the GOP in no time, even if this significantly increases the deficit over the short term.