I dinged Glenn Reynolds recently for using a highly misleading graph. He claims it shows that the stimulus didn't work as promised. But the reason for the faulty projections in the graph – made before Obama even took office by those working off transition data – is that it under-estimated the collapse in growth in the fourth quarter of 2008. It assumed a drop of around 3 percent of GDP when the actual fall, subsequently revealed, was more like 9 percent. So of course if you're starting far lower on a graph than you think you are, the predictions of the future will be way off. All we learn from the graph is the quality of the input data, which the original report notes was subject to sizable margins of error. So the report even contained its own caveat.
But Reynolds doesn't address this point – my only point – at all. Here's his attempt:
The Obama central planners spent nearly a trillion dollars based on their projections, and now we’re supposed to ignore their wildly erroneous forecasts because they just didn’t realize how bad the Bush economy was?
Well, yes. And we know this for a fact because the false data they used is in the public domain and explains the entire errors in the projections. (As for those "central planners" does Reynolds acknowledge that over a third of the stimulus was in tax cuts?) Then Reynolds throws in a Trig dig, and excerpts a post saying I have not attacked Obama's spending, while I did Bush's. But as any reader knows, I gave Obama a pass for the first two years because cutting spending when you are in danger of triggering a global depression is about the only time I don't think spending should be cut. I favor short term stimulus and long-term entitlement reform and serious defense cuts, along Bowles-Simpson lines. I gave Obama hell for ignoring the commission at the time.
But yesterday Reynolds reprinted the graph with the same bullshit analysis. Proof of an out-and-proud propagandist, who cannot even address the single point of a criticism.
The Dish 