It's Tourney Time!: Pickin' with Obama

Both Cornell and Wisconsin (my almae matres) are in but are not expected to get past the first round.  Obama doesn't think so either.  Fortunately, I can economize by saying "Go Big Red!" for both.  I wonder what kind of deference he would have given to Oregon State had they made the tournament?

Obama's Speech

Perhaps I am getting just too cynical but here are three things that caught my attention from last night's speech to a joint session of Congress by President Obama:

1. The cost of the war in Iraq will now be a part of the official budget of the federal government.
2. The Obama administration intends to slash the federal budget over the next couple of years.
3. The Obama administration intends to bring the war in Iraq to a relatively swift conclusion.

Hmmmm...methinks I see a connection.

Okay, to be fair, just because military operations will cease does not mean we will stop spending lots of money on Iraq and putting the cost of the war in the budget is definitely the right thing to do. So perhaps I have just become conditioned over the last eight years to see accounting tricks everywhere...

President Obama

This cover was from before the election and now seems a bit foreboding (as in "it's time to walk the walk").  President Obama is about to confront immense challenges to the prosperity, health and safety of our country and quite soon we will know how deftly he can maneuver through the political landscape and deliver the critically necessary fiscal stimulus bill and then follow up with a comprehensive health care plan, an environmental sustainability strategy and on and on and on. 

Back home in Oregon, the landscape is turning bleaker by the minute and we are staring down the real possibility of sacrificing our future to meet immediate budgetary challenges.

Needless to say there is a lot of very hard work ahead both for Obama and Kulongoski and national and state legislators, but this too shall pass and with a clear focus on the future and a commitment to protect the most vulnerable in society we shall weather this moment and emerge stronger.  But it will take time.

Good luck and godspeed President Obama.

[Note: Tomorrow or Thursday, I shall post the last of my three part education series of posts with an overview of what we know about education and the future of prosperity in America]

The Fiscal Stimulus Plan Analysis from the Obama Camp

An economic analysis of the Obama fiscal stimulus plan. Remarkable for its even handedness - the work of professional economists not political operatives (what a nice change).

Here is the picture that says it all:



What is scary about this picture is that with or without stimulus, unemployment is not predicted to return to under 6% until 2012.

I think the question is not is it too much, but is it enough? As an economist I would like to see a bit more, but as a realist, I realize that getting it done politically is a challenge and there is no time to waste.