59% of US believe gov't is problem, not solution

[Surlethe]

Rasmussen

In early October, as the meltdown of the financial industry gained momentum following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronald Reagan that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Since then, the stock market has fallen roughly 3,000 points, millions of jobs have been lost, nearly a trillion dollars has been spent so far to bail out the financial industry, an additional $787-billion government stimulus package has been approved, and a new president has taken office who has proposed spending billions and billions more.

Despite all that, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that the basic views of the American people have not change: 59% of voters still agree with Reagan’s inaugural address statement. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.

Middle-income voters are more likely to agree with Reagan than those who earn less than $20,000 or more than $100,000.

Political liberals strongly reject Reagan’s view by a 60% to 28% margin. Forty-seven percent (47%) of moderates agree, while 32% do not. Conservatives are overwhelmingly supportive.

Although the Republican Party in Washington veered away from Reagan’s approach in the years since the 40th president left office, 83% of Republican voters around the country still agree with him. So do 40% of Democrats and 60% of those not affiliated with either major party.

A majority of all voters say the Republican Party should return to the views and values of Reagan to be successful.

In a corollary to Reagan’s assessment of government, most voters believe that no matter how bad things are, Congress could always make them worse.

Other recent polls show that most voters continue to believe that tax cuts are good for the economy and 48% hold the view that increased government spending hurts the economy.

Other survey data shows that 72% of voters believe a free market economy is better than one managed by the government. That’s little changed since December.

While voters prefer the free market in theory, they are clearly willing to support government intervention for specific projects. Most Americans favor a six-month moratorium on mortgage foreclosures. However, most are opposed to more bailouts.

Here's one for anybody who believes that Democrats are liberal: a third of Democrats think that "government is the problem, not the solution." There's some leeway here for poll question question-begging, but on the whole the economic mean of the Democratic Party is just a tad to the left of Reagan. And half of all Americans think that increased government spending hurts the economy? That's a simpleton's view of things.

On the one hand, these are complex issues that you can't get meaningful opinions on from a short poll question (that is, if the voter in question has a meaningful opinion; it is not clear to me if that is a reasonable expectation). On the other, even the crude approximations these answers give should be enough to convince the reasonable observer that (1) the US political landscape is dominated by conservatives; (2) how far Reagan's shadow extends over politics; and (3) the US political center of gravity is well within the 'conservative' domain.

[ray245]

Rasmussen

In early October, as the meltdown of the financial industry gained momentum following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronald Reagan that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Since then, the stock market has fallen roughly 3,000 points, millions of jobs have been lost, nearly a trillion dollars has been spent so far to bail out the financial industry, an additional $787-billion government stimulus package has been approved, and a new president has taken office who has proposed spending billions and billions more.

Despite all that, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that the basic views of the American people have not change: 59% of voters still agree with Reagan’s inaugural address statement. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.

Middle-income voters are more likely to agree with Reagan than those who earn less than $20,000 or more than $100,000.

Political liberals strongly reject Reagan’s view by a 60% to 28% margin. Forty-seven percent (47%) of moderates agree, while 32% do not. Conservatives are overwhelmingly supportive.

Although the Republican Party in Washington veered away from Reagan’s approach in the years since the 40th president left office, 83% of Republican voters around the country still agree with him. So do 40% of Democrats and 60% of those not affiliated with either major party.

A majority of all voters say the Republican Party should return to the views and values of Reagan to be successful.

In a corollary to Reagan’s assessment of government, most voters believe that no matter how bad things are, Congress could always make them worse.

Other recent polls show that most voters continue to believe that tax cuts are good for the economy and 48% hold the view that increased government spending hurts the economy.

Other survey data shows that 72% of voters believe a free market economy is better than one managed by the government. That’s little changed since December.

While voters prefer the free market in theory, they are clearly willing to support government intervention for specific projects. Most Americans favor a six-month moratorium on mortgage foreclosures. However, most are opposed to more bailouts.

Here's one for anybody who believes that Democrats are liberal: a third of Democrats think that "government is the problem, not the solution." There's some leeway here for poll question question-begging, but on the whole the economic mean of the Democratic Party is just a tad to the left of Reagan. And half of all Americans think that increased government spending hurts the economy? That's a simpleton's view of things.

On the one hand, these are complex issues that you can't get meaningful opinions on from a short poll question (that is, if the voter in question has a meaningful opinion; it is not clear to me if that is a reasonable expectation). On the other, even the crude approximations these answers give should be enough to convince the reasonable observer that (1) the US political landscape is dominated by conservatives; (2) how far Reagan's shadow extends over politics; and (3) the US political center of gravity is well within the 'conservative' domain.

When a world cried out for a FDR, the best we can get is Barack Obama. Although I have to wonder, what happens if Obama managed to win on a landslide comparable to FDR's win in 1932 and Regan's win in 1984?

Although I have to wonder, how many Americans would even support FDR policies to begin with?

[aerius]

The government certainly isn't helping with its poorly thought out & executed bailout plans & stimulus packages, my opinion is they're making things a lot worse. On the other hand, the government is the only party which can fix this mess by enforcing laws & regulations and preventing the financial hucksters from engaging in the widespread fraud which got us to where we are now, and which will continue to fuck things up. The government has the power to stop the fraud, clean up the system, and force a reset to get us back to a sustainable productive economy.

The government is both the problem and the solution. If the government got out of the bailout & stimulus business the market is not going to fix itself, it's just going to figure out more ways to create money out of nothing and defraud everyone, that's what it's been doing for the last decade (at least) and it's not going to stop doing so. It's not going to enforce regulations on itself and fine itself money, Bank of America isn't going to go "we cooked our books by $44 billion, let us whack ourselves with a fine", and JPMorgan isn't going to say, "hey, that's not fair, BAC cooked their books!", cause they're cooking their own books. Which means the government needs to step in and whack'em all over the head and make'em follow the rules, and fine the fuck out of them and send people to jail when those rules are broken.

The problems will not fix themselves if government just got the fuck out of way and let the market do its work as is claimed by many people. The problems will be fixed only if government gets in there and forcibly cleans the shit up. In other words, massive government intervention.

[Surlethe]

The problems will not fix themselves if government just got the fuck out of way and let the market do its work as is claimed by many people. The problems will be fixed only if government gets in there and forcibly cleans the shit up. In other words, massive government intervention.

I'm going to disagree with you here. If the government gets out of the way and just enforces the rules of the free market, the problem would fix itself: all the banks would collapse, the implosion of the financial sector would entirely wipe out new business creation, business investment, financing, and pretty much every other investment activity that goes on expectations, and this would set off a chain of manufacturing and retail collapses. Aggregate demand would accelerate its downward spiral, unemployment would shoot up to triple digits pretty goddamned high numbers (30%?), and the economy would enter a period of prolonged contraction until the enterprising individuals who start new banks in the midst of the tailspin gain enough traction to resume large-scale lending. At that point, if the society hasn't crumbled Mad-Max style, investment would resume and the economy would start to build itself out of the slump. Even if society does crumble, which I think highly unlikely, eventually civilization will return and when it does, the economy will grow right back up with it.

Conclusion: the economy will fix its economic problems, it's just that it will fuck over a shitton of people doing it.

[aerius]

The problems will not fix themselves if government just got the fuck out of way and let the market do its work as is claimed by many people. The problems will be fixed only if government gets in there and forcibly cleans the shit up. In other words, massive government intervention.

I'm going to disagree with you here. If the government gets out of the way and just enforces the rules of the free market, the problem would fix itself: <snip>

Well, it's not "getting the fuck out of the way" if they're still around to enforce the rules of the free market is it?

[Surlethe]

Well, the market can't really do its work if the rules aren't enforced. This libertarian perspective - that government is pretty much just there to police and enforce contracts - is the sort adopted by Friedman, and, in my understanding, most libertarians subscribe to that notion. I mean, if the government ceased to exist as an effective entity and created a lolbertarian paradise, we'd have bigger problems than the economy.

[AdmiralKanos]

Imagine if people said that police were not the solution to crime, based on the fact that some cops are incompetent or corrupt. That's the same logic we're seeing here; people look at examples where government has failed, and declare that therefore, government is the problem rather than the solution. But it's the same logic: if someone said that police were the problem rather than the solution, the obvious retort would be "have you got some better idea", and they wouldn't have one. Allowing "the market" to police crime would be completely absurd to almost everyone except for hardcore libertarians.

It's just unfortunate that the "government is the problem rather than the solution" people have done such a good job of publicizing their non sequitur, and opponents of this viewpoint have had nowhere near as much public propagandizing of the obvious counter-arguments.

[aerius]

Well, the market can't really do its work if the rules aren't enforced. This libertarian perspective - that government is pretty much just there to police and enforce contracts - is the sort adopted by Friedman, and, in my understanding, most libertarians subscribe to that notion.

Going by that definition, sure, the economy will fix itself, but it'll do so in the most chaotic and damaging way possible, which is basically burning itself to the ground, taking everyone else with it, and then and only then, starting a recovery of some sort. And probably starting a bunch of wars in the meantime.

[Surlethe]

Yes, that's the point - it's technically true that the economy will fix itself, it will just do so inhumanely. It's sort of like the idea that the free market will solve world hunger by starving all the poor people.

[aerius]

It's sort of like the idea that the free market will solve world hunger by starving all the poor people.

You mean like the Shep Solution&trade; is not an acceptable means of achieving world peace? Blasphemy!

[Forum Troll]

most voters believe that no matter how bad things are, Congress could always make them worse

most are opposed to more bailouts.

Damn right.

Outside of rare anarchist crazies, there's no dispute over whether the government is needed. Nobody's saying abolish the government. The dispute is whether the right route is being followed now, whether it is headed towards making things better or worse.

Government policy has set the reserve ratio very low. IIRC, in the U.S., fractional-reserve banking has a required reserve ratio less than two thirds that in China (which, interestingly, is still having economic growth, perhaps helped by their relatively greater savings).

Now we've seen a huge bubble in house prices form from the excess money created and given to those spending beyond their means, then the subsequent crash, the current unstable economy based on debt to such an extreme degree.

I recall reading stories about how terrible it is that some people might save their tax refunds without much increase in immediate consumption and how to make government policies to encourage spending. (After all, everybody knows a penny saved is a penny wasted: imagine if there was a science fiction race of worker robots who spent none of what they were paid immediately, who worked for free in the short-term, how indisputably undesirable & useless they would be to employers, to production, and to long-term infrastructure & capital investment).

Then now we see fucking huge amounts of additional deficit spending to try to solve the problem, like maxing out credit cards for short-term gain having to be paid off later.

If the new budget was $50000 per taxpayer a year, you couldn't blame people for starting to critically think about whether it is in their best interests, asking how much they will be paying in the future for any benefits now. The actual amount isn't that. It's $12000 per person and $25600 per active taxpayer for the federal budget of 2010, yet that's still enough to raise disputes about sustainability.

Is the new budget going to make things better or worse in the long term than if it hadn't been so much of a jump?

[Darth Wong]

Outside of rare anarchist crazies, there's no dispute over whether the government is needed. Nobody's saying abolish the government.

No, but they are saying that the government should do pretty much nothing other than locking up violent criminals, policing the border, and delivering the mail. That's actually a pretty common viewpoint, and as far as market economics go, it is pretty much the same thing as anarchy.

The dispute is whether the right route is being followed now, whether it is headed towards making things better or worse.

Wrong. The propaganda attack on "big government" has been going on for three decades before Obama took office and the stimulus plan was proposed.

Then now we see fucking huge amounts of additional deficit spending to try to solve the problem, like maxing out credit cards for short-term gain having to be paid off later.

It's an economic crunch so it's more like a person who has become unemployed borrowing money so he can keep paying his living expenses, until he can get back on his feet. It works so long as he can get back on his feet and potentially pay off the debt later. Unfortunately, that will never happen in the United States as long as this "small government" meme is so powerful, because people will always demand that the government extract less money in taxes than it needs in order to pay its debts and cover its expenses. Even if the economy starts to improve, nobody would accept that now is the time to raise taxes and pay down the debt. Instead, they would say "Hooray, the economy is turning around, let's cut taxes!"

The funny thing is that 20 years ago, the situations were reversed. The conservatives were calling for higher taxes in both Canada and the US because they felt it was needed in order to pay the bills. That's back when I called myself a conservative. The Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in Canada introduced the GST: a much-hated but much-needed new tax designed to help balance our books. The Republican President George H.W. Bush raised taxes despite a campaign promise not to do so: again, a fiscally responsible move intended to balance the books.

Unfortunately, both of them were crushed in ensuing elections, and a bizarre Twilight Zone shift occurred, in which true fiscal conservatism simply fled out of the public consciousness. Today, people who call themselves "fiscal conservatives" are actually tax-cut afictionados, and people who call themselves "fiscal liberals" are actually spending-increase afictionados. Neither side will dare say "raise taxes", so the concept of the "fiscal conservative" from my university days is gone.

[Samuel]

It's sort of like the idea that the free market will solve world hunger by starving all the poor people.

You mean like the Shep Solution&trade; is not an acceptable means of achieving world peace? Blasphemy!

Is it killing all enemies with nuclear fire or all potential, suspected and potentially suspected enemies with nukes? Personally I prefer Thomas Hall's solution- nuke the Moon. If they think we are nuts and Shep-like noone will mess with us.

No, but they are saying that the government should do pretty much nothing other than locking up violent criminals, policing the border, and delivering the mail. That's actually a pretty common viewpoint, and as far as market economics go, it is pretty much the same thing as anarchy.

Basically what the government did in the 1890s, except I don't think the policed the border. Of course, many of these people want drugs banned and a large military which contradicts the small government goal, because... well, you already said it- they view everything in terms of enemies.

[The Guid]

Let's think about what the poll means though. When the phrase "government is part of the problem" is thrown at people, they will instantly think of their own government, especially as a question was asked about Congress in the same poll - something that has a very bad press and has for a long time. They may not mean it merely in the abstract sense but the may think their own political system is broken... which it quite clearly is.

[aerius]

Government policy has set the reserve ratio very low. IIRC, in the U.S., fractional-reserve banking has a required reserve ratio less than two thirds that in China (which, interestingly, is still having economic growth, perhaps helped by their relatively greater savings).

Actually it's even worse. Thanks to the Hank & Ben and one of the bailout packages last year, the reserve ratio is now ZERO. Banks aren't even required to hold reserves anymore. As for China still having economic growth, that's debatable. Based on their energy consumption figures, energy imports, the percentage of total energy consumption by industry, and how much of their GDP is manufacturing exports, my wife & crunched the numbers to come up with a ballpark growth estimate. It's either flat or slightly negative. We suspect the Chinese government is cooking their books.

[Darth Wong]

Let's think about what the poll means though. When the phrase "government is part of the problem" is thrown at people, they will instantly think of their own government, especially as a question was asked about Congress in the same poll - something that has a very bad press and has for a long time. They may not mean it merely in the abstract sense but the may think their own political system is broken... which it quite clearly is.

Agreed. The problem is that it has become fashionable to assume that the government is "broken" by being too large, rather than by being ineffective, inadequately funded, and irresponsibly run.

As I said, people would never apply this logic on a more local level. If the police aren't getting the job done and there are corruption scandals in the department, nobody says "the solution is fewer police".

[Forum Troll]

Outside of rare anarchist crazies, there's no dispute over whether the government is needed. Nobody's saying abolish the government.

No, but they are saying that the government should do pretty much nothing other than locking up violent criminals, policing the border, and delivering the mail. That's actually a pretty common viewpoint, and as far as market economics go, it is pretty much the same thing as anarchy.

This article is talking about the viewpoint of the majority of U.S. voters, what the 59% meant when answering the question. What you're describing corresponds to a minority, to the libertarian party which never got more than a miniscule percentage of the vote in any major election.

The dispute is whether the right route is being followed now, whether it is headed towards making things better or worse.

Wrong. The propaganda attack on "big government" has been going on for three decades before Obama took office and the stimulus plan was proposed.

Varying on how broadly you define things, you could say there have been debates for a lot more than 3 decades on policies, even for centuries. The recent topic includes the annual deficit rising to $1.8 trillion in 2010. Yet there is also far more to this matter even than spending figures alone, like the reserve ratio, whether it should be allowed to be as low as it is now, whether it should be raised and whether the economy needs to get more based on savings. (The required reserve ratio standard is often 10%, except I can believe aerius there about it able to be even less). Just dropping the topic into a "big government" debate would sidetrack the details.

Then now we see fucking huge amounts of additional deficit spending to try to solve the problem, like maxing out credit cards for short-term gain having to be paid off later.

It's an economic crunch so it's more like a person who has become unemployed borrowing money so he can keep paying his living expenses, until he can get back on his feet. It works so long as he can get back on his feet and potentially pay off the debt later. Unfortunately, that will never happen in the United States as long as this "small government" meme is so powerful, because people will always demand that the government extract less money in taxes than it needs in order to pay its debts and cover its expenses.

You'd have a hard time raising taxes enough to fully compensate for spending figures like $26000 annually per taxpayer (federal budget of 2010) and would need to work out exactly what percentage rates would be involved. Besides, how much are the factors that allowed this in the first place like the low reserve ratio being fixed? Some say the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting better results the second time.

Today, people who call themselves "fiscal conservatives" are actually tax-cut afictionados, and people who call themselves "fiscal liberals" are actually spending-increase afictionados. Neither side will dare say "raise taxes", so the concept of the "fiscal conservative" from my university days is gone.

Typically true. Indeed the favorite combo now is to increase spending at the same time as cutting taxes, thus maximizing the deficit. People still pay for the costs, just like they would if the government cut taxes to zero and printed an extra $5 trillion tomorrow, but it hides the real situation.

[Samuel]

This article is talking about the viewpoint of the majority of U.S. voters, what the 59% meant when answering the question. What you're describing corresponds to a minority, to the libertarian party which never got more than a miniscule percentage of the vote in any major election.

The Green party got 2.7% of the votes in the 2000 election. However, the percentage of the population who supports environmentalism, social justice and the like is much higher. Most of those people are in the Democrats however. The same holds true for people who are libertarians when it comes to the social net.

[Coyote]

The problem is, the phrase "government is part of the problem, not the solution" is a meme that even the staunchest Socialist would probably parrot in the USA. To say otherwise would cost votes. The same country that "hates big government" is also the one that has the school lunch program that even the most nanny-state European country would not dream of having, as mentioned in the earlier thread; it is also the country where the most dyed-in-the-woll Libertarian insists the government must bail out businesses that are teetering, and other things.

[B5B7]

Of course, for 8 years (2000-2008) the (US federal) government was part of the problem. So, although the survey may be talking about government in the abstract, many people will be influenced in their answer by that.
That does create an ironic situation in regard to Republican supporter responses - most of them respond that they think big government is the problem, and their own party has provided evidence for that position in relation to itself.

If a greenie thought racing cars were a big reason for pollution, then they wouldn't get involved in racing car industry; yet so many who think government is bad actually become part of the political process. But one can never expect any consistency from these people; for instance, in the 2007 federal elections in Australia, a religious group known as the Exclusive Brethren tried to influence the Liberal Party (our neo-con party then lead by John Howard) and yet it prohibited its own members from voting. How retarded.

Now, one might say that anti-government types becoming involved in government is working from within the system to destroy it, but their actual actions when in power do not support this. So, when the Republicans gained power they made government more interfering and therefore necessarily bigger.

[Glocksman]

Imagine if people said that police were not the solution to crime, based on the fact that some cops are incompetent or corrupt. That's the same logic we're seeing here; people look at examples where government has failed, and declare that therefore, government is the problem rather than the solution. But it's the same logic: if someone said that police were the problem rather than the solution, the obvious retort would be "have you got some better idea", and they wouldn't have one. Allowing "the market" to police crime would be completely absurd to almost everyone except for hardcore libertarians.

It's just unfortunate that the "government is the problem rather than the solution" people have done such a good job of publicizing their non sequitur, and opponents of this viewpoint have had nowhere near as much public propagandizing of the obvious counter-arguments.

God help me Mike, but I agree with you.
The last couple of years have opened my eyes.

That said, my problem is avoiding an extreme reaction and becoming a Bolshevik in response.
Though tarring and feathering the head of BoA is attractive.

[ray245]

The problems will not fix themselves if government just got the fuck out of way and let the market do its work as is claimed by many people. The problems will be fixed only if government gets in there and forcibly cleans the shit up. In other words, massive government intervention.

I'm going to disagree with you here. If the government gets out of the way and just enforces the rules of the free market, the problem would fix itself: all the banks would collapse, the implosion of the financial sector would entirely wipe out new business creation, business investment, financing, and pretty much every other investment activity that goes on expectations, and this would set off a chain of manufacturing and retail collapses. Aggregate demand would accelerate its downward spiral, unemployment would shoot up to triple digits pretty goddamned high numbers (30%?), and the economy would enter a period of prolonged contraction until the enterprising individuals who start new banks in the midst of the tailspin gain enough traction to resume large-scale lending. At that point, if the society hasn't crumbled Mad-Max style, investment would resume and the economy would start to build itself out of the slump. Even if society does crumble, which I think highly unlikely, eventually civilization will return and when it does, the economy will grow right back up with it.

Conclusion: the economy will fix its economic problems, it's just that it will fuck over a shitton of people doing it.

I would disagree. Let's assume we let the economy collapse, all the banks closing down and etc. The only thing that will happen is causing the economic recovery to be delayed as opposed to fixing it.

Fixing the economy is a far easier task than rebuilding an economy from scratch. And the process of rebuilding it would still require government intervention. Take a look at all the failed state in the world, and tell me if it is even possible for those states to rebuild an economy from scratch? It is a near impossible task without a stable government to run things.

Even if there is enough sane and capable investors and entrepreneurs left, it will be hard for those people to suceed without government aid, such as Tax relief for new Companies. To assume that just because you are capable, you are going to succeed is a fallacy. Your capability and skills will only grant you benefits in the right conditions.

Instead of looking at government intervention and no government intervention as a solution, we can look at how flexible or adaptable a government can be. A government that seek to create a good environment will always fail, a government that is able to adapt to the changing environment will be the one that will succeed in its task.

A government should always look at every sort of solution it can adopt, such as changing to a command economy if the consumer confidence in the market is falling, and banks are not willingly to loan money. It can also change to a market economy if it requires more investments to boast the economy.

I mean if changing from a command economy to a Market economy can help certain nations like China to increase their national wealth and improve their economy, is it hard to assume the opposite solution will not work?

If the banks are failing, the US should consider becoming a command economy, nationalise all the failing industries and banks, be willingly to loan money again and most importantly demonstrate the will and intention to privatise those industries when the time is right.

The downside is, the American culture will be so adverse to a command economy, that such solution will never be implemented. It will be interesting to wonder, what if the Soviet Union is still around in 2009? Would those market based economies be willingly to ask for help from the soviet Union to save their economy?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Let's think about what the poll means though. When the phrase "government is part of the problem" is thrown at people, they will instantly think of their own government, especially as a question was asked about Congress in the same poll - something that has a very bad press and has for a long time. They may not mean it merely in the abstract sense but the may think their own political system is broken... which it quite clearly is.

Agreed. The problem is that it has become fashionable to assume that the government is "broken" by being too large, rather than by being ineffective, inadequately funded, and irresponsibly run.

As I said, people would never apply this logic on a more local level. If the police aren't getting the job done and there are corruption scandals in the department, nobody says "the solution is fewer police".

My boss would. He actually reflexively votes down local tax increases (we're talking a quarter of a cent on the dollar) because "they haven't spend their money efficiently so far." Literal anarcho-capitalist lunacy is starting to take hold in the dyed-in-the-wool conservotard parts of the country, with all the crypto-Confederate localism that goes with it.

[PainRack]

Pardon me if I should move this to a new thread or something, but am I right in that the government response to the eocnomic crisis is Print more money so that there's more dollars and more consumption, stimulate consumption via tax cuts, and lastly, government spending to prevent radical contracture?


So...... if people believe that the government is the problem and not the solution and that tax cuts is the key, are they thus arguing against the keynesian approach Obama is trying to do?


I'm sorry, but the finanicial crisis and the political response in America is just way too confusing.......... Sometimes, I miss Mathathir and his "Its all George Soros fault, and we should switch the finanicial markets back to a means of raising capital, not gambling!"

[The Guid]

So...... if people believe that the government is the problem and not the solution and that tax cuts is the key, are they thus arguing against the keynesian approach Obama is trying to do?

Just as an aside in many ways, the reason that what Obama is doing is not Keynesian in the strictest sense, or perhaps in any sense at all, is that the Keynesian approach should also have been taken at times of economic growth - the government needed to be running a surplus to keep money aside ready to invest during a downturn. As it is the US has been running a deficit even during the economic "boom" times making the approach Obama is taking more fraught with difficulties as the deficit balloons to titanic levels.