This graph posted at Patterico’s Pontifications: Obama’s Budget Deficit seems scary enough:

Could future recessions be even worse as a result of Obama’s plans for such a massive expansion of the size and role of the Federal Government? A recent article titled Big Government, Big Recession by the Cato Institute’s Alan Reynolds suggests this possibility. One study has shown that the era of post-New Deal, big government spending and intervention has increased average recession length:

A 1999 study in The Journal of Economic Perspectives by Christina Romer (now head of the Council of Economic Advisers) found that “real macroeconomic indicators have not become dramatically more stable between the pre-World War I and post-World War II eras, and recessions have become only slightly less severe.” Ms. Romer also noted that “recessions have not become noticeably shorter” in the era of Big Government. In fact, she found the average length of recessions from 1887 to 1929 was 10.3 months. If the current recession ended in August, then the average postwar recession lasted one month longer — 11.3 months. The longest recession from 1887 to 1929 lasted 16 months. But there have been three recessions since 1973 that lasted at least that long.

The article points out that economies with the smallest Governmental share of GDP tend to recover the quickest. Several European economies are already recovering form the current contraction. Could a future recession be longer and more severe than the current, resulting in the nightmare scenario of calls for even more deficit spending to prop up an economy that is increasingly dependent on it?

Today’s Union Leader reports that some NH auto buyers are being asked to cover their promised “cash for clunkers” rebates:

Frustrated with delays, rejections and computer-system crashes, several New Hampshire auto dealers are making car buyers pledge to cover rebates if the federal government doesn’t come through with checks under the Cash for Clunkers program.

Auto dealers say they are doing so because the federal government is a clunker when it comes to sending out rebate checks of $3,500 or $4,500 per car.

Now of course there are associated consumer protection issues and the state of NH is looking into it. Maybe there needs to be some form of protection for the dealers as well.

In Swanzey, the dealership that includes Toyota of Keene is waiting for money from 130 rebates.

Fore some dealers, the IOUs surpass $500,000, (NH Auto Dealers Association President Peter) McNamara said. “For any dealer, $100,000 represents a serious cash-flow issue if you don’t know when it’s going to come in,” he said.

And President Obama’s administration thinks it can manage a nationalized health care system? Reminds me of this guy:

*Update: HotAir reports on the Feds pulling workers away from FAA to staff exploding Cash for Clunkers bureaucracy and adds this cautionary note:

There’s actually a serious risk here that the feds are going to mismanage a simple car-rebate program into bankruptcy. Oh, and more good news: Confirming earlier suspicions, it’s foreign carmakers that are getting the lion’s share of the sales. Exit question: Which is more frightening as an omen for ObamaCare’s future problems? Yesterday’s $2 trillion upwards budget revision or this wheezing canary in the coal mine?

*Update: Mercifully it’s over. Ed Morrissey has a good review of this clunker of a program.

Allahpundit’s Hot Air post Surprise: Stimulus not stimulating construction industry, infrastructure repair reflects my own sentiments about the recovery, Presidential approval ratings, the risks of conservative over-confidence, and Republican party strategy:

.. if it’s true that the recession is finally ending and the economy starts expanding (however sluggishly) next year, will voters really care about stimulus waste during the midterms? The relief that the tide is turning will be so great, I think, that they’ll be willing to forgive The One virtually any Keynesian mistake. There’s a lesson in that for the GOP, too: Since the economy and unemployment are bound to turn around sooner or later, it pays to start shifting their message now from “where are the jobs?” to “how much of our money have you blown?”

The situation will be different in 12 months, and the rate of unemployment may not be quite the political weapon it appears to be now. However, the quality of those jobs, average wages (especially take home after-tax pay), and the week-in, week-out burden the deficit places on the average family may be more effective.

How very concise and to the point: Althouse: How Obama lost me.. Of course, Obama lost me long before he was elected.   Nevertheless, like many conservatives, I was cautiously optimistic about the incoming president’s potential.

Despite worsening poll numbers and increasingly negative perceptions, it’s too early to write off this presidency as a single-term Carter-esque failure.  Anything can happen in the next 2+ years, and public opinion can change rapidly, even if that change isn’t sustained.  However, the rivets on the keel of ship Obama are popping off.  In what seems like a mea culpa Ms Althouse echoes one reader’s comments:

1. He did not understand economics, the most important issue.
2. He [never had] the ability to make the experience argument.
3. He never defined himself as a principled [liberal].
4. Erratic and incoherent, he lack[s] sufficient [courage].

Point number 2 is obvious. No need to discuss it here. That economics is the most important issue of the day needs no debate either.

It’s not that the president and his advisers did not understand economics – they don’t understand economics or else they would cease pushing for broad health care reform and mentioning a second stimulus package. Like many liberals, the president has surrounded himself with people who think they will be spared the deleterious effects of their policy prescriptions. Who in the White House has struggled to meet a payroll? Do any members of the senior staff have real market experience? As for health care, spare me the reasoning that he’s just trying to address our system’s inherent inequalities and make it more humane. Has any member of the president’s staff talked with a doctor in a hospital in a country with socialized medicine and been told that the hospital can’t afford the medicine needed for their loved one? I have. It’s not humane.

The economic failure of what has come to be called Porkulus, however, has a much to do with points number 3 and 4, which are interrelated. Liberal or conservative, principles give rise to courage, and thus to a coherent plan of action. The apparent ineffectiveness of the first stimulus package is a result of its lack of focus on creating jobs where they are most needed. A leader with principle, courage, and an understanding of economics would have ensured the expected returns were consistent with an investment that mortgages a multi-generational future, instead of working with Congress to pander to the perpetual cry-babies of the left.