Harvard’s Robert Barro, author of this great Wall Street Journal piece, describes the stimulus bill:

This is probably the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s. I don’t know what to say. I mean it’s wasting a tremendous amount of money. It has some simplistic theory that I don’t think will work, so I don’t think the expenditure stuff is going to have the intended effect. I don’t think it will expand the economy. And the tax cutting isn’t really geared toward incentives. It’s not really geared to lowering tax rates; it’s more along the lines of throwing money at people. On both sides I think it’s garbage. So in terms of balance between the two it doesn’t really matter that much.

Fascinating interview with the Atlantic here.

Even George W. Bush was in office for a couple of years before the faculty of Harvard was denouncing him as the worst president ever. Obama already has them calling his top legislative priority the worst piece of legislation since the 1930s. Obama did say he’d hit the ground running. Turns out he hit the ground running amok.

(A request: Anybody know what economics classes, if any, Obama took in school? He campaigned as the great intellectual–I’d be interested to know which econ classes he selected, who his professors were, what grades he made. Last I checked, Obama’s college transcripts were locked up at Area 51 alongside all the other great national-security secrets. Anybody with any knowledge, please email me.)