mame
Well-Known Member
Well:
...[Martin] Feldstein is an economics professor at Harvard University. He's also the retired president of the National Bureau of Economic Analysis, the well-regarded organization that determines when the economy falls into recession, as well as when recessions come to an end.
He was one of the first top economists to call the start of what became the Great Recession, telling CNNMoney in early January 2008 that a recession was "likely." The recession was later determined to have begun in December 2007.
Feldstein has also served as a top adviser and policymaker for every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan, for whom he served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. In his role as an adviser to George W. Bush's campaign, he is widely seen as the father of the tax cuts that were passed early in that administration.
But no, today's Republicans are moderate! It's those damn Socialist muslim kenyan Democrats who've moved left!Feldstein blames the Obama administration for much of the economic mess - but not in the same ways that orthodox Republicans would. He suggests that the $830 billion stimulus package passed in 2009 by Democrats -- over almost universal Republican opposition -- was not big enough to make up for the drop in demand for the economy. That's an argument usually made by liberal economists rather than conservative ones.
And rather than say that there should have been more emphasis on tax cuts in the stimulus, as Republicans typically do, he says that direct government spending is the more effective. He believes the money should have been spent on military equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than to support state and local governments and other public works, as the Obama stimulus package did.(source)
