 | Economists With Which Hillary Clinton Has Been Putting Her Lot |
“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”
– Hillary Clinton, May 4 2008, explaining why her gas tax plan will work despite unanimity among economists that it will not. Clinton goes on to explain that economists are just a bunch of pointy-headed elitists that good working salt of the earth types such as herself would do well to distrust.
But apparently, economists are only pointy-headed elitists unworthy of her trust when they disagree with her:
“James Heckman, Nobel Prize-winning economist from the University of Chicago, hardly thought to be a hotbed of fuzzy thinking and liberal thought, he did a study, and he concluded that if we had universal pre-kindergarten, we would close by 50% the achievement gap between white and black children.”
“Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who worked on the Massachusetts plan, said a mandate means “the difference between universal or near-universal coverage…. Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman praises Hillary’s approach.”
– HillaryClinton.com on Health Care, February 16, 2008
“If efficiency in the nation’s healthcare system increased by an additional 1.5 percent per year - what economists generally agree was the impact of information technology on the wholesale and retail industry - savings could be as high as $346 billion annually”
– Hillary Clinton, Current Fact Sheet on Health Care, putting her lot in with economists. The Fact Sheet cites the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Forum for Health Economics and Policy.
“Economists estimate that every $1 billion spent on fixing crumbling infrastructure creates nearly 48,000 new jobs…. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that we’ve lost 1.8 million jobs to China, we’re paying higher prices for low cost consumer goods some of which have serious safety problems.”
– Hillary Clinton, October 8 2007
“The failure to address the climate crisis will put the United
States economy in jeopardy. A recent University of Maryland study of the economic costs of
continued climate change in the United States documented hundreds of billions of dollars of
increased costs in all regions of the country due to the heightened risk of forest fires in the West
and Northwest; increased frequency and severity of flooding and drought events in the Great
Plains and Midwest; and more frequent and intense heat waves like the 1995 Chicago heat wave,
which resulted in 600 deaths.”“Hillary believes it takes much more than a good plan to move us towards energy independence and address global warming. That is why she has a clear plan for developing and implementing her policy proposals. She will create a National Energy Council modeled on the National Economic Council and the National Security Council. This new body will bring together disparate agencies in the federal government to put everyone on the same page and ensure that we all have the same priorities – much like the National Economic Council does for the economy.”
“Economists estimate that more than 80% of energy expenses leave low-income communities, and thus do not generate additional economic activity inside those communities.”
“Within an overall framework of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to renewables, the
benefits from efficiency improvements could help create more than a million new jobs in California alone over the next ten years. [U.C. Berkeley, Economic Assessment for Climate Action in California, 2007].”“A recent study by the University of Tennessee found that our economy could create about 2 million jobs from clean energy over 10 years if we get on a path to produce 25% of our electricity and motor fuel needs from renewables by 2025. [University of Tennessee, 25% Renewable Energy for the United States By 2025: Agricultural and Economic Impacts, November 2006].”
– Hillary Clinton, Powering America’s Future.
“We now have lots of evidence from hard-headed economists that investing in early childhood makes sense. According to one study conducted by Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman of the University of Chicago, you can close half the gaps in testing between African-American and white students that shows up at the end of high school if you have pre-school.”
“Since 2001, the trade deficit has doubled, and the Economic Policy Institute estimates that we have lost 1.8 million manufacturing jobs to China… economists are now concerned that the problems in housing could spillover and hurt the broader economy.”
“Now, we also know that investing in infrastructure creates jobs. The estimates are pretty reliable. For every $1 billion spent on fixing crumbling infrastructure creates nearly 48,000 jobs.
But instead of investing in the infrastructure of the future and growing our economy, we continue to make do. We patch and repair. We ignore the advice of our engineers, economists, businesses, unions, community leaders. We try to build our children’s future with our grandparents’ infrastructure. And we are falling further and further behind.”
“Healthcare 101: One of the top health economists in the nation, MIT’s Jonathan Gruber, explains why a health care mandate – the underlying plank of Hillary’s approach to health coverage - is the only way to guarantee coverage….”
“In fact, according to some economists, America hasn’t experienced a sustained annual decline in housing prices of this magnitude since the Great Depression.”
“According to a recent analysis by economist Robert Lynch, high quality universal pre-kindergarten programs pay for themselves after nine years and produce a growing annual return in the years beyond. In response to this research, states have increased their investments in pre-K significantly in recent years.”
“Hillary’s plan is the only plan that includes aggressive measures to combat the foreclosure crisis. Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said that a plan that keeps families in their homes “would stimulate the economy.”
“COPS works: Yale economist John Donohue found that each $1.4 billion invested in the COPS program is likely to generate a benefit to society from $6 billion to $12 billion.”
“I think we’ve had enough of a president who didn’t know enough about economics.”
I sure know I’ve had enough.
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Oh, but see, THIS TIME Hillary Clinton knows that the economists are wrong, because see, her Spider Sense is tingling.
Hillary Clinton is a pander bear.
Comment by Fruktata — 5/5/2008 @ 5:46 pm
She’s gone to the dark side too by courting the Right Wing people via Bill O.
Win at any cost, that’s Republican Hillary for you.
Comment by Tom — 5/6/2008 @ 7:55 am
Hillary is doing more than pandering. She is telling lie after lie without batting an eye. The one thing that I cannot stand is a liar. You can’t trust a liar.
Comment by Debmood — 5/6/2008 @ 9:39 am
And now I hear on my local NPR station that Hillary Clinton’s new strategy is to win with the support of “Reagan Democrats”.
“Reagan Democrats” = Republicans who enter the Democratic Party to try to screw it up.
Hillary Clinton is the new Joseph Lieberman.
Comment by Junga — 5/6/2008 @ 9:43 am