Is being critical of the stimulus synonomous with being conservative?

Is being critical of the stimulus synonomous with being conservative?

I'd have to answer no. This story that Drudge linked has economists speaking critically of the stimulus.

"I think (doing) nothing would have been better," said Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst who's usually an optimist, in an interview with McClatchy.

So far so good but then this...

He argued that the plan fails to provide the right incentives to spur spending.

So it is not the idea of fiscal stimulus that is the problem but the particulars that are the problem. Then this...

"It's unfocused. That is my problem. It is a lot of money for a lot of nickel-and- dime programs. I would have rather had a lot of money for (promoting purchase of) housing and autos . . . . Most of this plan is really, I think, aimed at stabilizing the situation and helping people get through the recession, rather than getting us out of the recession.

Is that - subsidies for home and auto purchases - conservative? Helping people get through the recession, presumably by helping them stay fed and reasonably healthy, is not conservative but helping them buy cars and houses is? Then there's this...

"All this is 25 years of government expansion jammed into one bill and sold as stimulus," said Brian Riedl, the director of budget analysis for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy research group.

That's plausible. That represents a legitimate conservative objection. What about this?

"While the stimulus bill is a necessary condition for economic stabilization and recovery, it is hardly sufficient," Galston wrote. "As the lesson of Japan in the 1990s shows, fiscal stimulus without financial rescue yields stagnation — at best."

That's William Galston who is at the center-left Brookings Institution. Now conservatives can tend to agree with that. In fact I'd say it is a major point that center-right economists have been making, that until the financial system is reformed and working efficiently a fiscal stimulus is not going to yield a recovery. Conservatives would tend to argue more strongly against the fiscal stimulus but agree that it is no silver bullet.

Then to demonstrate that forecasters don't know what the hell they're talking about, and neither does anyone else, half the time...

"Something is better than nothing, and bigger was better than smaller in terms of the stimulus needed," said Chris Varvares, president of prominent forecaster Macroeconomic Advisers in St. Louis. "The economy needs a fiscal jolt."

There is more agreement among economists then most people realize. Perhaps it is a matter that there is less agreement and understanding now with respect to what defines and constitutes conservatism/liberalism.