Yesterday Leftovers For 7/29/10: Peter Orztag Didn't Care That The Stimulus Was Too Small

Photo from Lauren Victoria Burke, AP

Not many people gave much attention to what soon to be ex Budget office director Peter Orszag said at the Brookings Institute in his virtual goodbye speech yesterday. There was even a bizarre moment in the half speech/half press conference, where one individual acting like a certified right wing "douche" (not a surprise, it was a LaRouche supporter) by singing in sarcastic glee for the Obama Administration health reform plan.


But besides that extremely peculiar moment that made everyone laugh after that idiot was thankfully removed, Orszag was asked to look back at why the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was smaller than what it should have.

Cue the wonderful centrist response.

"I am as pleased as large as it was, and there was none, 0.00& of it having any chance of it being bigger. A bigger stimulus would have been politically unsuccessful, led to delays, and would have been unsubstantial."

Yes, Orszag said all of that yesterday.

Typical as always, media outlets focused on his talks of the deficit not needing to be reduced, as our idiot media always does.

But this was the real key moment in that session yesterday. Back in February 2009, Arlen Specter was still a Republican in the House of Lords, and their record filibuster tactics were beginning to emerge. They were holding firm on the stimulus despite all the tax breaks in it, and there needed to be Republican votes to pass the stimulus. That is understandable.

But for Orszag to say "he sympathizes with The Left" and then indicate that there was not in a remote, exiguous fervor for making the stimulus bigger is a highlight of "more sad centrist crap half-task work.

More disturbing is how Orszag doesn't even mention the need of a second stimulus right away, or why those tax cuts weren't a real good idea other than barely giving some short term relief to middle class families.

Our budget director, along with everyone else apart of that economic team knew full well that the stimulus was too small. And yet, they did nothing to try and realize it needed to be bigger, or there needed to be a constant wave of it.

That in a nutshell is great centrist policy ladies and gentlemen!