Tim Fernholz of the American Prospect has a good piece analyzing what metrics the Obama administration can use to gauge the success of its policies. One particulalry interesting point was how to measure the stimulus bill’s effectiveness when the economy has gotten even worse than expected:

More problematic is the fact that the economic outlook has worsened since the government made its initial projections and that unemployment is rising. That doesn’t mean the ARRA (American Reinvestment and Recovery Act) isn’t working; rather it’s akin to having a doctor prescribing weak medication before realizing your illness has worsened. But it does leave the administration open to criticism, especially now that current conditions suggest another stimulus effort would be beneficial for the economy — even as the numbers give the administration’s political foes the ammunition to say the current stimulus isn’t working.

One sign of a good president, I think, is admitting that a policy you pushed for was flawed. The stimulus bill was a $787 billion piece of legislation, an expansion of the federal government into state and local affairs not seen since LBJ or FDR. But while the bill was historic it also has had not nearly enough impact. States like California and Illinois have essentially given up the core functions of state government like balancing a budget and funding elemental social service programs.

So the bill needs to be re-visited, but it’s hard to see how reconsidering the stimulus fits into the flow of the Obama presidency.  Obama seems to be confronting one major crisis after another: first passing a stimulus bill through Congress, then the crisis on Wall Street, then Afghanistan, and now health care and energy. With so much to accomplish, the story becomes the process of legislation winding its way through Congress (Will Ben Nelson vote for health care reform? Will there be a public insurance option?) instead of a look at what impact enacted legislation has. Maybe the administration’s strategy is to delay re-visiting policy changes until the bulk of the president’s agenda — health-care reform, a cap-and-trade bill on carbon emissions — is enacted in one form or another.

The last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, was accused of having a small presidency. You can’t say the same about Obama.-MB

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