Confusing the amount spend by government with size of stimulus

I admire Charles Krauthammer, but every once in a while he is completely wrong. Possibly this is one case where his very liberal background (Mondale's speech writer during the 1984 campaign) comes through. His most recent op-ed is such a case.

Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat? . . .

If you want an explanation for why more money being spent by the government doesn't mean more of a stimulus, see this here.

Possibly, Charles is just trying to give liberal Democrats a hard time and show that Republicans are willing to more than compromise with Obama, but that liberals are unwilling to compromise. That way, Democrats will face more of the blame when taxes go up in January. Tax increases should be the Democrat's fault anyway because they massively control everything right now in Washington.



See this at Politico:

“We are allowing the liberal wing of the Democratic Caucus to hold these critically needed tax cuts hostage,” Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) told POLITICO. “It is long past time to get this deal done and get our economy moving again. Unfortunately, my colleagues are either not listening to what the voters are saying, or they are not interested in doing what is best for the American economy.” . . .