Democrats Try to Lower Expectations: "Recovery will not be immediate."

WSJ: Democrats Try to Lower Expectations
NAFTALI BENDAVID
DECEMBER 21, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Even as they depict a massive stimulus package as indispensable to turning the economy around, U.S. Democratic leaders are aggressively lowering expectations that the package will yield dramatic accomplishments quickly.

Rep. David Obey, who is playing a key role in assembling the stimulus plan, which is expected to approach $800 billion, said recently that an infusion of federal spending is "the only game in town." But the Wisconsin Democrat, who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was careful to add: "The downward momentum appears too strong to end the recession anytime soon." House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's office said recently that "Congress needs to pass an economic recovery package to prevent any further decline in the economy" -- but cautioned, "recovery will not be immediate."

The expectations game is always tricky in politics. To win power, candidates promise to enact sweeping change. But once victory is in hand, they often scramble to lower those expectations so they won't be perceived as falling short. Democrats are facing an especially precarious version of that dilemma. In crafting a package that will sink hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the economy, they are apprehensive about the fallout if the economy merely continues sputtering along for several years.

And lawmakers are already mindful of how they will face voters less than two years from now. The ruling party almost always loses seats in midterm elections, and that trend could be exacerbated for the Democrats if voters think they threw billions of dollars at the economy with little to show for it. "Elections are run in two-year cycles, and we're in an economic cycle that we can't turn around in two years," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.). "It's a political problem. But I don't know that there is a way out of it."

President-elect Barack Obama, asked how voters will be able to judge whether his economic package is helping, said it would create at least some jobs immediately by funding "shovel ready" construction projects. The Democrats could also get credit if they produce concrete results in areas such as providing mortgage relief or extending unemployment benefits.

Still, the political challenge is daunting, given that economists expect this recession to last for years....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122990372926325149.html

because even if Obama ignores the sage advice of all the hidebound old monetarists on his team and does the right things, next year is likely to be a miserable one for all of us with high unemployment, closing retail stores and restaurants, and continuing inflation in food prices.

Next year is when the second financial shoe drops, when all those creative mortgages written on hyperinflated properties at the end of the bubble market reset and go into default.

Nothing is going to keep next year from sucking. People who adapt will do OK. People who cling to entitlement won't.

After all, if the rest of the country is going to have to suffer with this -- should not THEY tighten their belts. too?