From March 24, 2009: Grassley Proposes Insane Three Year Spending Freeze

Nothing like a recycled idea from a Republican with a shout out from noted liberal Evan Bayh. He had some help with it though from that other liberal Sen Chuck Grassely (R-Ia):

Grassley Proposes Insane Three Year Spending Freeze

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has been on a roll recently. In the last few weeks, he suggested that AIG executives commit suicide, advocated lying about comparative effectiveness research and electronic medical records, and is now pushing an insane, debilitating spending freeze as a response to our economic ills:

“What you get when you have an across-the-board freeze is everybody is seen as contributing something,” Mr. Grassley said…adding that a three-year freeze would produce a more dramatic effect. “Over a period of time, there’s something predictable about a freeze, and over a period of time it makes a big difference…The multiplier effect of freezing something for three years is very dramatic.”

As Paul Krugman wrote regarding a spending freeze, “that’s not a retrogression to Herbert Hoover; even Hoover knew better than that.” David Brooks agreed, calling such a move “insane.”

A freeze would have the “dramatic effect” of providing dangerous anti-stimulus at the precise moment when stimulus is needed most. It’s a shame that this policy prescription is coming from Grassley, who can be so reasonable when not engaging in crazy rhetoric.

(edited for missing word)

This will be a good test of whether he's still an economist, or if he's nothing but a political commentator.

me.....

Its economic suicide for a recovery.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/obama-liquidates-himself/

<snip>

A spending freeze? That’s the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?

It’s appalling on every level.

It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. Jonathan Zasloff writes that Obama seems to have decided to fire Tim Geithner and replace him with “the rotting corpse of Andrew Mellon” (Mellon was Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, who according to Hoover told him to “liquidate the workers, liquidate the farmers, purge the rottenness”.)

Adviser on Rachel says it is targeted at wasteful spending that does not help create jobs, whatever that means.

Grassley's plan was across the board, which is Stupid Hooverism.

It's a rhetorical question. I know the answer because one person's wasteful spending is another ones priority.

Maybe nonsense supported by Bush/Cheney for 8 years. :shrug: