That was a hard read. He's pretty damn smart. I guess I have one problem. He makes a blind leap of faith assuming that Obama intends to make good his promise that the stimulus provisions are temporary. Why on earth would he think that?

Paul - I think he is hoping for it but understands it may not happen. "skeptical optimist" encapsulated. He is just brilliant. wish I'd taken another 6 or 9 hours of economics.

Good analysis. However, everyone seems to be missing a big point here: The US Constitution lists the Enumerated Powers for the US Government, and economic stimulus is not among them, nor is 99% of the other crap that has been encroaching on our liberty for the last 100 years. I don't give a flying stink pickle what the motivation is, if it isn't in the Enumerated Powers, the US Government can't the hell do it. Period. End of story. They have two choices:

1. Renegotiate the contract (amend the Constitution) and all the political wrangling that goes with it.
2. Butt the hell out, and let We the People figure out how to solve our own problems, Keynes be damned.

Somewhere we went from Serving the people to Changing the Country to a Socialist State with directives to the people.Why can not most people understand this ?

dudley1 - Because they have been indoctrinated in our gummint schools. In true Gramschian fashion the socialists took over the schools, just like they took over the media and Hollywood. A well educated electorate would not have elected JHE.