Spanky,

Are you a stand up comedian? Well, first they have to have a budget and second..............well you know that will never happen. Obama is like a young adult with a credit card, spend until the bill comes.

Paul-Florida,

Good Point. But, could it be.......

Obama is like a young adult with a credit card, spend until the bill comes.

Then hide the bill (budget) as long as you can (till after the election).

I suspect the real reason is that she sees the financial disaster looming ahead, and doesn't want to be connected with it.

Like Peter Orszag, it will soon be rats deserting a sinking ship, and economists are good at seeing the future about the economy. It's good to leave before the Deficit Commission report comes out in December.

The news of Romer's resignation breaking today coincides nicely with the release of jobs numbers by the Labor Department for July.

For the third straight month, the economy has created far fewer private sector jobs than necessary for economic recovery. Further, last month's job losses were revised upward to 221,000...far greater than the 125,000 jobs lost initially reported for June.

President Obama can stay on the campaign trail indefinitely assuring the public that his economic stimulus package is getting the job done, but folks know whether or not they and their unemployed friends and neighbors are getting jobs.

No amount of spin from this Administration is going to change that. And, when that spin doesn't match the facts on the ground...people are aware of that as well.

Based purely on its results, the Obama economic team should be seeing lots of changes in the near future...to go along with the changes made in Congress by an unhappy electorate in November.

Hi Nash... It's nice to see some voices of reason on here after 5... It's like First Read is taken over by Joanne & Jay from 9 to 5, and after 5 all the 'part time' employees come out... Very strange...

Anyway, this is one of those lies that if repeated enough times, suddenly becomes truth. How silly we've become.

Thanks for the voice of honesty - before and after 5...

The DailyKos? ummmmmmmmmm....no!! Let's use something not Far Left Wing............

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1910208,00.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB124753066246235811.html

Lynn, KCMO. I second that, I don't come on too often after 5 but it is nice to see your voice of reason. I agree, there seems to be a lot of ignoring what was beyond the 8% number; guess it's easier to just say it than explain it. Unfortunately it is one of those things the GOP made stick.

I'm sorry to see Romer leave but I can understand why, Larry Summers is a dominating guy maybe a bit overbearing--the trouble is he is also very smart. I think the only reason he is in the administration is the desparate economic situation forced hiring someone like Summers who had been part of the big push to deregulate because they understood the impact better and how best to undo it.

Paul,

The diary I linked to was one written by me with a link to the ACTUAL REPORT so you can read it FOR YOURSELF.

Since you are afraid to click on the link lest you get cooties from Daily Kos, here is the link to the report in question:

http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf

The title of the report is “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”.

The date of the report is January 20, 2009, ten days before Senator Obama was even sworn in as President.

Here is an excerpt from my cootie filled Daily Kos diary for anyone on the planet who actually gives a hoot:

The VERY FIRST WORDS of the report are these:

"A key goal enunciated by the President-Elect concerning the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is that it should save or create at least 3 million jobs by the end of 2010. For this reason, we have undertaken a preliminary analysis of the jobs effects of some of the prototypical recovery packages being discussed. Our analysis will surely evolve as we and other economists work further on this topic. The results will also change as the actual package parameters are determined in cooperation with the Congress."

Got that? The report is a PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS of a PROTOTYPICAL PACKAGE which will EVOLVE. Could it be stated any more clearly than that?

Now, here is the statement that has somehow been taken out of this PRE- PRESIDENTIAL report and put into the President’s mouth, as if by magic:

"First, the likely scale of employment loss is extremely large. The U.S. economy has already lost nearly 2.6 million jobs since the business cycle peak in December 2007. In the absence of stimulus, the economy could lose another 3 to 4 million more. Thus, we are working to counter a potential job loss of at least 5 million. As Figure 1 shows, even with the large prototypical package, the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0%, which is well below the approximately 8.8% that would result in the absence of the plan.

Second, as emphasized above, there is considerable uncertainty in our estimates: both the impact of the package on GDP and the relationship between higher GDP and job creation are hard to estimate precisely. . ."

Once again, it is CLEARLY STATED that these are ESTIMATES and LIKELY to be incorrect. So why is the media pretending like the President predicted definitively that the stimulus would keep unemployment under 8% when he NEVER DID?

The unemployment rate in January 2009 was 7.6%, so CLEARLY nobody in there RIGHT MIND thought that the Stimulus package was going to be able to hold it under 8%. The stimulus bill wasn’t signed into law until mid February . . . the unemployment rate then was ALREADY 8.1%.

Take it or leave it, but you can’t say you didn’t know.

P.S. Thanks for the kind words Lyn . . . lately I usually don't read too much further than First Thoughts . . . so it was completely random that I saw this . . . not sure if that is good or bad! :o)

Paul,

I read both of the articles you linked to and found nothing in either that contradicted what I wrote originally.

Information is not left wing or right wing, so perhaps you should take information from wherever it comes and judge it on its merit, not just your affinity for its source.

One slight correction - 2008 GOP WH

The U.S. government's fiscal year begins on October 1 of the previous calendar year and ends on September 30 of the year with which it is numbered. Prior to 1976, the fiscal year began on July 1 and ended on June 30. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 stipulated the change to allow Congress more time to arrive at a budget each year, and provided for what is known as the "transitional quarter" from July 1, 1976 to September 30, 1976. As stated above, the tax year for a business is governed by the fiscal year it chooses.

For example, the United States government fiscal year for 2010 ("FY 2010" or "FY10") is as follows:

• 1st Quarter: October 1, 2009 - December 31, 2009
• 2nd Quarter: January 1, 2010 - March 31, 2010
• 3rd Quarter: April 1, 2010 - June 30, 2010
• 4th Quarter: July 1, 2010 - September 30, 2010

So you see Wade, when the national debt exploded in 2009, we were on Bush administration last budget.

Exactly. And the 2000 budget surplus that he has erroneously credited to the Bush presidency occurred during the last year of the Clinton presidency (with a R controlled congress) because that year's surplus was generated in 1999. The 2001 budget surplus can also be attributed to the budgetmaking of Clinton and the R congress because that surplus was generated in the year 2000.

Wade, you do realize that presidential elections are held in November every four years (2000, 2004, 2008) and that the sitting president at that time continues to hold office until January of the following year, (2001, 2005, 2009), right?

The incoming president inherits the budget from the previous year and has very little influence on it during that year, unless of course he was an incumbent and was involved in the budget writing process. Or unless there are emergency measures to deal with crisis situations like the stimulus package. For example, TARP, which was approved by President Bush as a response to the crisis in 2008 was integrated into the budget of the 2009 fiscal year because the 2008 budget was written in 2007. The stimulus package, which was approved in 2009, I believe was parceled out over the course of three years and impacts the budgets of 2009, 2010, and 2011.

The jump from a -458 billion to -1.4 billion federal deficit from 2008 to 2009 can only partially be attributed to the policies of the Obama administration and only those parts that were directly added by emergency spending from the stimulus bill.

However, in a larger sense, the gap between income and outflow can only even be partially attributed to increased spending. The major reason for the gap is a combination of increased outflow WITH decreased INFLOW, which is mainly due to decreased tax revenue as a result of the mass panic layoffs in 2008-2009.

If we, as a society, have decided that income producing entities like corporations have no tax burden, (as 50% of them do not under the current taxing system), and that those with the highest incomes have less burden than they used to, (as we did in 2001 and 2003), then we had better ensure there is a thriving middle class in order to maintain the tax revenues of the government. Otherwise, when there is a financial crisis like this, it is going to result in a massive budget gap like the one we have.

There would have been a spike in the deficit after the mass panic layoffs in 2007-2008 regardless of the amount of spending the federal government did. It would not have been as extreme as it has been, but it would have happened nevertheless. And the likelihood is that without the stimulus spending, by 2014-2015, we would have reached a trillion dollar budget deficit anyway because unemployment would have quickly reached the 15-20% range with farther reaching, long term effects. Those trillion dollar deficits at that point would have become 'hard' deficits with no chance to recover because there would be no chance in the intermediate range future for tax revenue to approach their former levels.