CBO: The Full Report

And, says JNS, I am deeply sorry for spreading false RW talking points about a report that was only an analysis of 35% of a preliminary version of the stimulus bill. I will learn from this episode and never again trust anything republicans tell me before I verify it from an actual honest source of expert information.

wvng
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If only it were so....

Well, points scored on the Krugman quote. I like watching the roundtable discussion because he always pwns George Will. And at least JNS isn't getting smashed with Tucker Bounds. Al Gore Debate Sigh avoided!

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Okay, Jay, There was no "debate" "raging." You wrote stuff the Republicans gave you and misled your readers. I don't expect you to get down on your knees and beg forgiveness, but the entirely misleading bit in your piece still stands. The least you could do is go in and correct it, or make it less misleading. You have the integrity to at least do that, don't you?
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"Not helping matters is a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that came out Tuesday, which shows that only 38% of the $350 billion in appropriated funds — which includes $274 billion for infrastructure investments — would make their way into the economy within two years of enactment."
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against this:
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"Overall the CBO estimates that more than two-thirds, 64%, of the bill will be disbursed into the economy over the next 18 months."
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I mean, who are you writing for, anyway? If you are writing for your audience, surely you don't want them to be misled by what you have written. If you are writing to please a certain insider group, that's a different matter. Please let us know if that is the case, so we can readjust our opinion of your credibility.
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Because, you know, the people who already read this blog have already informed themselves, no thanks to you and Time Mag. It's your wider audience that will be misled.
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C'mon guys -- the story was about the political climate of the stimulus last Wednesday and my story spent more time quoting Democratic senators' hand wringing over the report, and their general malaise with the House version which continuers[sic] despite the full CBO analysis, than it did citing the actual report.
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I get that Jay. But you never know what is going to have legs. The Repubs are expert at taking one tiny phrase and blowing it up into a five-day news cycle. You know this. I would just ask that you do your due diligence as a journo and check stuff like this.
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JNS: instead of taking your marching orders from the commenters here, have you considered just taking them directly from The Kos? It'll save a step.

JNS
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With "shovel ready" projects how could the money even possibly go out faster? The problem with "shovel ready" projects is that many of them are going to take more than a couple of months to finish. So if anything I would want those projects to go out a little bit slower from the stand point of making sure the money isn't used up without the projects getting finished. I don't think that even if 100% of the stimulus bill was infrastructure spending that you could possibly get the money out of the door any faster. Now if you could explain how shovel ready projects COULD get the money out of the door faster then I would love to hear it. Otherwise it would seem like a cya move by you to make it seem as if 41% might be too low.

Well, Jay, that's why I asked you who you felt like your audience is. Because if you are writing for Michael Grunwald, maybe he is born with the knowledge that the "report" wasn't looking at the entire bill, as you implied, but only a portion that went to appropriations committee. You think you average reader understands that kind of insider stuff? I'll tell you: No. they don't. What they come away with is as you implied and what the Republicans wanted people to take away: the stimulus bill isn't going to do what it purports to do in the next two years. And that is *exactly* the message that every journo is pushing, and it is false and misleading to put it that way and to use outdated and incomplete information to accomplish that.
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The Republicans are using you and your colleagues to diminish support for the bill, and you and your colleagues just willingly go along. Now why that is, I'm not sure. Sloppiness? Currying favor with John Boener? Laziness? Lack of expertise? Pushing a narrative? I don't know, but it doesn't serve your readers well.
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BTW, thanks for coming down into the swamps to talk about this.

Jay Newton-Small: thank you for acknowledging my existence. My comment was meant to highlight the fact that the comments section at this site is like something from DailyKos. One should keep in mind that the commenters here are not a representative sampling if one is going to take advice from the commenters here.
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While I've got you on the line, I've been unable to get any traction at all for this story. I'm currently trying to find a legal scholar/law school dean who can look it over and render a fact-based, intellectually honest judgment. Do you know of one?

Obama. Is. A. US. Citizen. Period.

Jay Newton-Small:
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Thank you very much for responding to commentary; it is very much appreciated.
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Seriously, this post is very important, and you display some guts engaging your readers in this open forum. We obviously disagree with how you've handled this story, but that's secondary to the fact that you've chosen the successful new media methods of transparency and engagement over the failed old press' opacity and the self-imposed, obtuse, professional bubble.
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Whatever else may be the case, this particular effort of yours deserves respect.
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Thanks again for real blogging, Jay Newton-Small.

I posted this in another thread so forgive the repeat if you're coming across it again but I thought this was too good (from the current iteration of the House Stimulus Bill):

"None of the funds provided by this Act may be made available to the State of Illinois, or any agency of the State, unless (1) the use of such funds by the State is approved in legislation enacted by the State after the date of the enactment of this Act, or (2) Rod R. Blagojevich no longer holds the office of Governor of the State of Illinois. The preceding sentence shall not apply to any funds provided directly to a unit of local government (1) by a Federal department or agency, or (2) by an established formula from the State."

kattest-
"While I've got you on the line, I've been unable to get any traction at all for this story. I'm currently trying to find a legal scholar/law school dean who can look it over and render a fact-based, intellectually honest judgment. Do you know of one?"

You're not paying attention. Intellectually honesty is one of the problems everybody's talking about. Another is the interpeting of facts (sort of the same thing). BTW, commenters are not representative? Representative of what? You're on pretty shaky ground here.

The reference to Kossacks was just wrong, so wrong.

Yes, kattest, we're the crazy ones.

1000 Bridges To Nowhere?

= BIG DIG ACCOMPLISHED =

Never mentioned in the lib press or other Mavis Letterboob circular logic IS the fact that the New Deal was a FAILURE, and actually PROLONGED the Depression. Hitler, of all alleged people, did more to end the Depression (by stupidly raping Old Europe) than FDR.

We don't need bogus DNC crank make-work for SDS union slackers and tenured Ivy jerks.

We need to let bad businesses and banks chunk, jail the Wall Street hedge fund crooks, insure small investors and savers, close lousy skoos -- and let the normal market forces otherwise sift through this mess.

We don't need a savior.

We need common sense, and common perspective.

 
"L-shaped recovery" is a new one to me, and I wish I'd never heard it.
 

JNS #3) said: my story spent more time quoting Democratic senators' hand wringing over the report, and their general malaise with the House version . . . . Which highlights the need for more better democrats, and bolsters JNS' original approach to the story because the Dems were panicking instead of trying to figure out what exactly the report meant and talking coherently about it.

C&L reports: If you ever need an example of how the media swallows whole every right wing talking point, here it is. Norah O'Donnell uses John Boehner talking points about "contraception" to attack President Obama's stimulus plan as if it's the absolute truth. And of course everything else that republicans don't want in the bill is just plain old pork.

Think Progress reports: In a blog post, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf notes that the full report is "the first cost estimate that CBO has prepared" for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act "in its entirety."

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If you really had your readers in mind, you could have made that paragraph more clear:
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"Not helping matters is [a cherry-picked part of an analysis] from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) [based on outdated numbers from a prior version of the bill distributed by Republican leadership], which shows that only 38% of the $350 billion in appropriated funds [which is only one-third of the total funding of the bill -- the part that goes to the appropriations committee - not the part that go to other committees and are are expected to spend out more rapidly] — which includes $274 billion for infrastructure investments — would make their way into the economy within two years of enactment."

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I mean, you claim to have done due diligence. Due diligence would have obligated you to say that you got that outdated "report" directly from Republicans. What part of due diligence is making comments and judgments on outdated numbers of a prior part of the bill, especially when you are implying it is a current and meaningful analysis? They are only relevant if you clarify that you got it from the Republicans who are trying to scuttle that part of the bill. But you neglected to say that.
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And by the way. Why would that be a bad thing? That it might take longer than two years to spend out a massive amount of infrastructure allocations? That it might take three years rather than two to design and engineer and build new roads and bridges and levees? That's a bad thing? If so, you don't explain why. Especially when you leave out the faster-spending parts of the bill like extending unemployment.
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It appears that you have no expertise at all to make a judgment whether two years is a good or bad time period to spend out allocations. (If you have such expertise, please enlighten me.) So you take the Republican frame and run with it because you appear to be more excited about the politics of it than the policy, you and your colleagues and the Republicans. That's a disservice to your readers.
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j-la - what are you doing up in the middle of the night fella?