For Your Early Morning Reading

Obama's op-ed piece in the Washington Post on the stimulus package. I like the way it ends with "The writer is the president of the United States." Bully pulpit...

I haven't written about the most recent quarrels over what constitutes job-creation and what the stimulus package should contain, because what I think matters most right now is for the government to step in to increase aggregate demand in the economy. Consumers are not going to spend much money at this time, but the less we spend the more jobs we will lose, due to the lack of customers or clients. Hence the need for government spending.

UPDATE: Yglesias writes about some of the things that the so-called moderates want to be cut out of the package. Perhaps the very things that would most help state economies. It's always tricky when economics and politics clash.