Quotes of the day

[Capping CEO pay] is like rewarding the arsonists and capping the firemen.--Carl Quintanilla

If you spend lots of your budget on "luxuries" -- especially durables -- it is easy to postpone their consumption. This might cause GDP to fall more rapidly than if people were poorer.--Tyler Cowen

Stimulus is not spending; it's deficit. If Bush had delivered a budget in rough balance, Obama would have had to borrow up to the current deficit to get the stimulus he desires. Given that more recent debt is always much more expensive than older debt (that's the magic of inflation, kids!), when taxes are finally raised, they will pay more for spending on Obama's watch than on Bush's.--Megan McArdle

Every president who inherits a deficit promises to cut it somewhere down the road. Only one president in recent years has kept that promise — Bill Clinton. But he was helped by six years of Republicans in the House and Senate. When the White House and the Congress are from the same party, it's very hard to say no to key constituencies that expect rewards for past support. If Obama is really serious about cutting the deficit down the road, he will almost certainly have to fight with his own party.--Russell Roberts

In this era in which [President Obama] wants us all to be accountable, is he accountable for his language, let alone his actions? How can he talk about fiscal responsibility when he has just signed a bill proposing a huge increase in the deficit and now is pushing another bill to increase the deficit even more?--David Henderson