Is Obamanomics D.O.A.?

So I understand that today President Obama signed this much maligned stimulus into law with the idea that it's necessary to jump start the US Economy again. Of course this could bed the question, is it time to coin a new term. We've had Reaganomics, but is it time now for Obamanomics?

What does this column from MarketWatch say? That column's title is the title for this post.

America's been operating at the opposite end of the political spectrum for 28 years going back to Reagan, a reign that's left Obama with a massive handicap: a huge unresolved banking system mess, an abortive $350 billion bailout that BusinessWeek labeled a "bust" and massive debt that one Nobel economist calls a "$10 trillion hangover." 

So yes, we must ask, over and over, that painful lingering question: Is Obamanomics and its Keynesian theory really better than Bush's Reaganomics? Obama is unequivocal and emphatic, we have no choice: "The federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life ... There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy." 

Conservatives vehemently disagree. The Cato Institute just ran full-page ads signed by 250 economists: "With all due respect Mr. President that is not true. Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan's 'lost decade' in the 1990s." 

Now get this: Even liberal New York Times columnist and Nobel economist Paul Krugman has jumped on the bandwagon, prematurely labeling Obama's presidency a failure ... after one month. Krugman warns that Obama's "belief that he can transcend the partisan divide" has "warped his economic strategy." Warped? Yes, it's "a defeat." 

So not only are conservatives and centrists prematurely signing Obamanomic's death certificate, liberals are also chanting the mantra: "Obamanomics has already failed."

 Via RealClearMarkets! I would suggest you read the whole thing and yes I think it's a little unreasonable to declare the Obama presidency essentially "dead on arrival". He can always switch gears and realize his folly.

Image via this article from The Guardian.