The New New Deal (75 page)

345
The best example was in Florida:
Michael Grunwald, “Can High-Speed Rail Get on Track?”
Time
, July 19, 2010,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2002523,00.html
.

346
“provide significant economic and environmental benefits to the state”:
Letter from Alcee Hastings et al., June 19, 2009. Republicans Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Adam Putnam were among the ten representatives who signed.

15. Gas Versus Brakes

347
President Bush inherited a budget in the black:
The Congressional Budget Office in January 2001 projected a surplus for that year of $281 billion and surpluses for that decade that would add a total of $5 trillion to the Treasury. In January 2009, weeks before Obama became president, the CBO projected the 2009 deficit to hit $1.2 trillion and the ten-year shortfall to be $3.1 trillion. “The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2002–2011,” CBO, January 2001,
http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/27xx/doc2727/entire-report.pdf
; “The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019,” CBO, January 7, 2009,
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/41753
.

348
a dizzying economic nosedive:
A study by Bob Greenstein’s left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that the decrease in tax revenue and increase in safety net payments caused by the economic downturn were responsible for roughly 30 percent of the deficits in 2009, 2010, and 2011, while the Bush tax cuts accounted for about 26 percent of those deficits and war costs accounted for about 14 percent. Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney, “Economic Downturn and Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Projected Deficits,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, May 20, 2011,
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3490
. The Recovery Act only accounted for about 13 percent of the shortfalls in those years and virtually none afterward.

349
The actual bond market seemed perfectly calm:
Bond rating agency Fitch found “relative calm” in the corporate bond market by the second half of 2009, noting that downgrades had nearly ceased and that low-grade bonds were being issued at a far greater clip than in 2008. “U.S. Corporate Bond Market Finds Relative Calm,” Fitch Ratings report, October 22, 2009.

350
“That is oh, so wrong”:
Ron Suskind was the first to report on this meeting:
Confidence Men
, p. 354.

351
Obama had tried to explain counterintuitive Keynesian concepts:
Paul Krugman noted that one passage of Obama’s inaugural address—“Our workers are no less productive … our goods no less needed … our capacity remains undiminished”—echoed the words of Keynes. “Stuck in the Muddle,”
New York Times
, January 22,
2009. The George Mason speech during the transition may have been his most emphatic defense of the idea that the government needs to spend more when families and businesses are spending less.

352
the bully pulpit doesn’t come with magical powers:
Ezra Klein, “The Unpersuaded,”
Washington Post
, March 19, 2012.

353
“a consensus that the stimulus package”:
Calmes and Cooper, “New Consensus Sees Stimulus Package as Worthy Step.”

354
When Summers froze Austan Goolsbee out of a key meeting on the auto bailout:
Steven Rattner,
Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry
(New York: Harcourt, 2010), pp. 129–30.

355
the White House scheduled a jobs summit:
Obama remarks at closing of jobs summit, December 3, 2009,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=86961
.

356
In a speech a few days later:
Obama speech at Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., December 8, 2009,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=86961
.

357
Obama’s political team wanted him:
Ryan Lizza, “The Obama Memos,”
The New Yorker
, January 30, 2012.

358
Obama proposed a three-year discretionary spending freeze:
State of the Union, 2010, January 27, 2009,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=87433
.

359
the president visited the Chesapeake Machine Company:
Obama remarks, Baltimore, Maryland, January 29, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=87464
.

360
breaking the Senate filibuster record:
Brian Beutler, “111th Senate Breaks a Filibuster Record,” Talking Points Memo, December 23, 2011,
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/111th-senate-breaks-one-filibuster-record.php
.

361
about $200 billion in additional fiscal pop before the 2010 elections:
Jobs-related bills enacted after the Recovery Act and before November 2010 added up to another $212 billion in fiscal aid. They included extensions of emergency unemployment benefits and COBRA, a hiring tax credit, bond subsidies for school construction and renewable energy projects, aid to states for public sector workers and Medicaid, tax cuts for small businesses, and a new small business lending fund.

362
“Environmentalists Need a New President”:
Glenn Hurowitz,
Grist
, July 22, 2010,
http://grist.org/politics/environmentalists-need-a-new-president/
.

16. Green New World

363
“Let me ask you a question”:
Obama and Biden remarks in Tampa, Florida, January 28, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=87462
.

364
The Tampa–Orlando line:
Grunwald, “Will High-Speed Rail Get on Track?”
Time
.

365
It felt like a teachable moment:
I’m afraid that I’ve bucked the groupthink on the spill as well; Michael Grunwald, “The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?”
Time
, July 29, 2010.

366
“Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?”:
Obama press conference, May 27, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=87963&st=&st1=#axzz1r6IS4jg6
.

367
Obama archly noted that some stimulus opponents:
Obama remarks in Holland, Michigan, July 15, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88188
.

368
“Green jobs may be the fad of the moment”:
Rattner,
Overhaul
, p. 309.

369
It took less than two years:
Joseph Aldy, “A Preliminary Review of the Recovery Act’s Clean Energy Packages,” Resources for the Future, January 2012.

370
By 2010, only 40 percent of the typical turbine was imported:
Michaela D. Platzer,
“U.S. Wind Turbine Manufacturing: Federal Support for an Emerging Industry,” Congressional Research Service, September 23, 2011.

371
the pioneering mega-state that gave us microchips:
Michael Grunwald, “Why California Is Still America’s Future,”
Time
, October 23, 2009.

372
“through programs such as ARPA-E”:
Jackie Kucinich, “Romney’s Rhetoric Differs from Record as Governor,”
USA Today
, September 7, 2011.

17. Political Recovery

373
Bartley was introducing Biden at a Recovery Act event:
I attended the event at the UQM facility in Longmont on April 29, 2010.

374
the White House estimated the Recovery Act:
“The Economic Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: Third Quarterly Report,” White House Council of Economic Advisers, April 14, 2010,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/CEA-3rd-arra-report.pdf
.

375
it nearly tripled the domestic content:
Michael Grunwald, “GOP Attacks on Stimulus Wind Power Money: Hot Air,”
Time
, October 15, 2010,
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2025886,00.html
.

376
Obama visited a factory under construction:
Remarks at Solyndra, Fremont, California, May 26, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=87950
.

377
USEC, a former government enterprise:
The U.S. Enrichment Corporation was privatized during the Clinton administration; Larry Summers was a big advocate, while Peter Orszag argued against it.

378
Boehner and McConnell have slammed the White House:
David Roberts, “GOP Tries to Explain Away Loan-Guarantee Hypocrisy, Fails,”
Grist
, October 14, 2011,
http://grist.org/politics/2011-10-13-republicans-try-to-explain-away-loan-guarantee-hypocrisy-fail/
.

379
“I hope you will realize the importance of such job creation to Kentucky”:
Eric Lipton, “Republicans Sought Clean-Energy Money for Home States,”
New York Times
, September 19, 2011.

380
Obama kicked off Recovery Summer:
Obama speech in Columbus, Ohio, June 18, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88080
; Kendra Marr, “Obama’s 58 Minutes in Ohio,”
Politico
, June 18, 2010,
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38739.html
.

381
“He created 70,000 new jobs this month”: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
, NBC, August 9, 2010.

382
The House Republican committee borrowed Schumer’s wind farm rhetoric:
Grunwald, “GOP Attacks on Stimulus Wind Power Money: Hot Air,”
Time
, October 15, 2010.

383
testy interview with the lefty comic Jon Stewart:
Obama interview on
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
, October 27, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=97095
.

384
“You don’t have to be a savvy political analyst”:
Obama interview on MSNBC, July 15, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88316
.

385
the electorate thought he had raised middle-class taxes:
Bloomberg poll, October 24–26, 2010.

386
“I think anybody who’s occupied this office”:
Peter Baker, “Education of a President,”
New York Times
, October 12, 2010.

387
the White House’s “unrealistic expectations”:
Robert Pear, “Doctors and Hospitals Say Goals on Computerized Records Are Unrealistic,”
New York Times
, June 7, 2010.

388
Obama hit the road with a modest new jobs plan:
Obama speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 6, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88418
.

389
“We got our mops and our brooms out”:
Obama speech in New York City, May 13, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=87922
.

390
a “shellacking”:
Obama press conference, November 3, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88668
.

18. Not Quite Done

391
Before he did anything else:
David Corn has a nice recap of the lame-duck negotiations in
Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Fought Back Against Boehner, Cantor, and the Tea Party
(New York: William Morrow, 2012).

392
“the swindle of the year”:
Charles Krauthammer, “Swindle of the Year,”
Washington Post
, December 10, 2010.

393
“If that’s the standard by which we’re measuring success”:
Obama news conference, December 7, 2010,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88781
.

394
the Tampa–Orlando line would create 27,000 jobs:
“The Economic Impacts of High-Speed Rail on Cities and Their Metropolitan Areas,” U.S. Conference of Mayors, June 2010,
http://www.usmayors.org/highspeedrail/documents/report.pdf
. The firm of Steer Davies Gleave projected a $30 million annual surplus by 2026; Wilbur Smith Associates predicted a $45 million surplus. “High-speed Rail Would Have Been Profitable, State Report says,”
Tampa Tribune
, February 6, 2012. Instead, the governor relied on a policy brief by the libertarian Reason Foundation.

395
It’s got the nation’s least educated population:
Alan Berube, “Degrees of Separation: Education, Employment, and the Great Recession in Metropolitan America,” Brookings Institution, November 2010; “State of the Air 2011,” American Lung Association, April 2011,
http://www.stateoftheair.org/
.

396
“determine if the company still had a viable business”:
Department of Energy loan office presentation provided to the author.

397
the state’s unemployment rate would have reached 14 percent:
Mark Price and Stephen Herzenberg, “The State of Working Pennsylvania 2010,” Keystone Research Center, September 2010.

398
“Rendell Declares Stimulus a Success. Don’t You Feel Better?”:
The Scoop blog, January 13, 2011,
http://blogs.phillymag.com/new_philly_post/2011/01/13/rendell-declares-stimulus-a-success/
.

19. The Legacy

399
At the progressive Netroots Nation conference:
Michael Grunwald, “Earth to the Left: Obama Is into You,” Swampland blog, Time.com, June 21, 2011,
http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/21/earth-to-the-left-obama-is-into-you
. At the conference, Dan Choi, the nation’s most prominent critic of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ripped up an Obama flyer—even though Obama had just overturned Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.