From John Cochrane at The Grumpy Economist,  Clinton Plan:

There are no numbers here anywhere. The $275 billion is clearly just a made up number that sounds sort of big but not so big as to attract tax-and-spend criticism. Because that is the last number in the whole document. In my rough calculation, she blew $275 billion by the first paragraph. As a consequence,  analysts who calculate how many “jobs” the “Clinton plan” will create are just making it up too.

There is no timeline or process The President of the US is not a King or dictator who waves her hands and upgrades at intermodal transfer facilities just happen. The president appoints cabinet secretaries, who oversee a bureaucracy, which must, by law conducts proper cost benefit analysis, follow the Administrative Procedures Act,  submit plans for EPA review, and so on.

In my world, things go wrong when markets go wrong, or the structures of government fail. In this (Hillary’s) world, things happen only on the will and attention of the President, including traffic jams. The people in charge now are either idiots, Republicans blocking progress, or just insufficiently guided by the great leader on top.  One need do not analysis of why things are going wrong, just “fight” to fix them.

This “plan” implies a stinging rebuke of her predecessor, when you think about it. If all it takes is the force of Hillary’s will to accomplish all this in 5 years for $275 billion, just why did he fail in 8 years with about $10 trillion? Maybe, just maybe, President Obama was trying darn hard, using the same methods, and came up short for a reason?

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