Tax increases appear to have a very large sustained and highly significant negative impact on output.

The very first email I got [was] from a women's group saying 'We don't want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men.'

Recent research suggests that New Deal programs may actually have had their primary impact on the economy by influencing consumer and business expectations of future growth and inflation.

If you think about it, candidate Obama, Sen. Obama, was running on sort of long-run economic issues, like restoring prosperity to the middle class, dealing with the perennial problem of health care in the United States. He talked a lot about the budget deficit, about the need to transition to clean energy.

You care about the deficit because it allows you to do things you need to do to help people who are suffering.

President Obama has repeatedly urged Congress to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those earning more than $250,000 a year. Increasing rates on top earners is an obvious way to raise revenue from those who can afford it most.

A successful argument for a government manufacturing policy has to go beyond the feeling that it's better to produce 'real things' than services. American consumers value health care and haircuts as much as washing machines and hair dryers.