The New New Deal (68 page)

10
A politically disastrous January 2009 report:
Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” January 10, 2009,
http://otrans.3cdn.net/ee40602f9a7d8172b8_ozm6bt5oi.pdf
.

11
the official price tag would eventually climb to $831 billion:
“Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output
from July 2011 Through December 2011,” Congressional Budget Office, February 2012,
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43014
.

12
the stimulus helped stop the bleeding:
CBO report on ARRA, February 2012; Alan S. Blinder and Mark Zandi, “How the Great Recession Was Brought to an End,” July 27, 2010,
http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/End-of-Great-Recession.pdf
; “MA on Fiscal Stimulus, the Definitive Answer: It Works. MA Refutes the Demagoguery,” Macroadvisers: The Blog of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, February 19, 2010,
http://macroadvisers.blogspot.com/2010/02/ma-on-fiscal-stimulus-definitive-answer.html
; “Fiscal Stimulus: A Little Less in Q2, A Little More Later,” Goldman Sachs, August 4, 2009; Jackie Calmes and Michael Cooper, “New Consensus Sees Stimulus Package as Worthy Step,”
New York Times
, November 20, 2009.

13
the low point came right before:
The biggest monthly job loss during the recession was in January 2009, when the economy shed 818,000 jobs.

14
The economy was shrinking at an unheard-of 8.9 percent rate:
“Results of the 2011 Flexible Annual Revision of the National Income and Product Account,” Bureau of Economic Analysis, July 29, 2011,
http://www.bea.gov/national/pdf/NIPAbriefing_AR2011.pdf
. The BEA is my source for all data on economic output.

15
Today, those independent analysts:
The various estimates are listed in “The Economic Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: Eighth Quarterly Report,” White House Council of Economic Advisers, December 9, 2011,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/cea_8th_arra_report_final_draft.pdf
.

16
the Recovery Act increased output over 2 percent:
A February 2012 CBO report found that the stimulus boosted quarterly economic growth by as much as 4.6 percent,
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/02-22-ARRA.pdf
. Private forecasters have estimated that the maximum effect was as little as 2.1 percent and as much as 3.8 percent. White House CEA report, December 2011.

17
“Oprah, I’ve got to tell you”:
Obama interview,
The Oprah Winfrey Show
, May 2, 2011.

18
this was the moment:
Obama speech following Iowa caucuses, January 3, 2008,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=76232
.

1. A Man With a Plan

19
Obama’s speech was memorable:
Obama inauguration speech, January 20, 2009,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=44&st=&st1=#axzzlmfRjZahX

20
The Recovery Act checked off:
The text of the Recovery Act can be found at
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hr1enr/pdf/BILLS-111hr1enr.pdf
.

21
“a president we know less about”:
The quote is from former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour at a Washington round table on September 7, 2010.

22
We know plenty about Barack Obama:
Obama’s own books,
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
(New York: Three Rivers Press; 2004 edition) and
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006), are the best introduction to his life and his mind. The best Obama biographies so far are David Remnick,
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama
(New York: Knopf, 2010) and David Mendell,
Obama: From Promise to Power
(New York: HarperCollins, 2007). (I reserve the right to revise and extend those remarks after David Maraniss weighs in.) David Freddoso’s
The Case Against Barack Obama
(Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2008) looks at Obama without sympathy but with facts from a conservative perspective. James T. Kloppenberg’s
Reading
Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009) is an interesting intellectual biography.

23
“could probably do every job”:
David Plouffe,
The Audacity to Win
(New York: Viking, 2009), p. 8.

24
“white folks this and white folks that”:
Obama,
Dreams from My Father
, p. 81.

25
“We should be guided by what works”:
Obama,
The Audacity of Hope
, p. 159.

26
Aside from the wingnut screeds:
Jack Cashill,
Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves and Letters of America’s First Postmodern President
(New York: Threshold Editions, 2011); Dinesh D’Souza,
The Roots of Obama’s Rage
(Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2010).

27
Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham:
Obama,
The Audacity of Hope
, pp. 45, 59; Obama,
Dreams from My Father
, p. 72.

28
As he explained to the uninitiated:
Obama,
The Audacity of Hope
, pp. 156–57.

29
the launch of the Hamilton Project:
Video of Obama speech, April, 5, 2006,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-5Y74FrDCc
.

30
“the draft letter saga”:
Obama,
The Audacity of Hope
, p. 35.

31
“We Are One People” speech:
Video of Obama speech, July 27, 2004,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWynt87PaJ0
.

32
“Maybe there’s no escaping”:
Obama,
The Audacity of Hope
, p. 41.

33
Obama announced his candidacy:
Obama announcement speech, February 10, 2007,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=76999
.

2. The Four Pillars

34
In his first policy speech of the campaign:
Obama speech, Detroit, May 7, 2007,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=77000
. Obama’s campaign book:
Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama’s Plan to Renew America’s Promise
outlines his specific policy agenda. The transition then posted much of it at
http://change.gov/agenda
.

35
Those last five words:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt inauguration speech, March 4, 1933,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14473
.

36
Oil imports had more than doubled since 1973:
1.4 billion barrels of oil were imported in 1973; 3.7 billion were imported in 2007: U.S. imports of crude oil, 1973 to January 2012, U.S. Census Bureau, Foreign Trade Division,
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/petr.pdf
. “World Proved Reserves of Oil and Natural Gas, Most Recent Estimates,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, March 3, 2009,
http://www.eia.gov/international/reserves.html
.

37
The ten hottest years on record:
Currently, the ten hottest years by temperature, according to the NASA Global Land Temperature Index, are: 2010, 2005, 2007, 1998, 2009, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2011, and 2004. So far, 2012 is looking like another hot one.

38
In an October speech in Portsmouth, New Hampshire:
Obama speech, October 8, 2007,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=93305&st=portsmouth&st1=obama#axzz11AFdDYKd
.

39
“standard goody-bag politics”:
Robert Samuelson, “The Obama Delusion,”
Washington Post
, February 20, 2008.

40
a renewable energy resource that’s perfectly clean:
Michael Grunwald, “America’s Untapped Resource,”
Time
, December 31, 2008,
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1869224,00.html
.

41
A McKinsey & Co. study found that efficiency:
“Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the
US Economy,” July 2009,
http://www.mckinsey.com/Client_Service/Electric_Power_and_Natural_Gas/Latest_thinking/
Unlocking_energy_efficiency_in_the_US_economy
.

42
It was analog in a digital world:
I learned a lot about the smart grid from Peter Fox-Penner and his book
Smart Power: Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities
(Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2010). I wrote about it in
Time
: Michael Grunwald, “Street Smarts,” September 30, 2011,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2094362,00.html
.

43
“It’s safe to say”:
David Roberts, “Obama Talks Up Electrical Grid Improvements on Cable TV—Seriously, I Have Video Evidence,” Grist, October 31, 2008,
http://grist.org/politics/grid-me-barry-one-more-time/
.

44
The ethanol boom:
Grunwald, “The Clean Energy Scam,”
Time
, March 27, 2008,
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0.9171.1725975,00.html
.

45
our share of the market had plummeted from 40 percent to 8 percent in a decade:
“Trends in Photovoltaic Applications,” International Energy Agency, Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme, August 2011.

46
the Energy Department’s research budget had plunged 85 percent:
Daniel M. Kammen and Gregory F. Nemet, “Reversing the Incredible Shrinking Energy R&D Budget,” University of California, Berkeley, Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 2005,
http://rael.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/old-site-files/2005/Kammen-Nemet-ShrinkingRD-2005.pdf
.

47
U.S. health spending had quadrupled in two decades:
For more on U.S. health spending, see the National Health Expenditure database at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services website:
http://www.cms.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/02_NationalHealthAccountsHistorical.asp#TopOfPage
.

48
The Congressional Budget Office warned:
“The Long-Term Outlook for Health Care Spending,” CBO, November 2007,
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/87xx/docs8758/11-13-lt-health.pdf
.

49
One study of preventable deaths:
“Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis,”
Health Affairs
, January 2008.

50
Less than half of U.S. medical treatment:
“Learning What Works Best: The Nation’s Need for Evidence on Comparative Effectiveness in Health Care,” Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, September 2007,
http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/Quality/VSRT/ComparativeEffectivenessWhitePaperF.ashx
.

51
Studies by Dartmouth researchers:
Jonathan Skinner and Elliot S. Fisher, “Reflections on Geographic Variations in U.S. Health Care,” Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, March 31, 2010,
http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/downloads/press/Skinner_Fisher_DA_05_10.pdf
.

52
Consumer Reports
had compiled evidence:
Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs studies, February 2011,
http://www.consumerreports.org/health/best-buy-drugs/best-buy-drugs/generic-and-brand-drugs/index.htm
.

53
Gingrich coauthored an op-ed:
Billy Beane, Newt Gingrich, and John Kerry, “How to Take American Health Care from Worst to First,”
New York Times
, October 24, 2008.

54
“It’s an attempt to say to patients”:
David Leonhardt, “After the Great Recession,”
New York Times
, April 28, 2009.

55
“They wanted more school”:
Obama,
The Audacity of Hope
, p. 250.

56
“Few of these educators”:
Obama,
Dreams from My Father
, p. 386.

57
“labeling a school and its students as failures”:
Obama speech to the American Federation of Teachers convention, July 2, 2008,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=77653
.

58
“I’m running for president”:
Obama speech, Dayton, Ohio, September 9, 2008,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=78610
.

59
“will help determine not only whether our children”:
Obama speech, Indianapolis, Indiana, May 3, 2008,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=77203
.

60
his first major economic speech:
Obama speech, Nasdaq headquarters, September 17, 2007,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=77012
.

61
wages had been flat:
“Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008,” U.S. Census Bureau, September 2009,
http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf
.

62
Bush returned more cash to the top 1 percent of taxpayers:
“Tenth Anniversary of the Bush Tax Cuts,” Economic Policy Institute, June 1, 2011,
http://www.epi.org/publication/tenth_anniversary_of_the_bush-era_tax_cuts/
.