I'M SURE THE RADIO GASBAGS WILL (OR ALREADY HAVE) BOTCHED THIS OP-ED

Grand Economic Poobah Martin Feldstein criticizes the Obama Administrations fiscal policies but not quite from the angle of a disciple of the Free Market Fairy.  Feldstein picks 3 policies he regards as failures:

...the cash-for-clunkers subsidy for car buyers, the tax credit for first-time home buyers, and the $830 billion "stimulus" package.

His criticism of the first two ISN'T that they couldn't be effective BUT that they were only temporary:

Cash-for-clunkers gave a temporary boost to motor-vehicle production but had no lasting impact on the economy. The home-buyer credit stimulated the demand for homes only temporarily.

On the stimulus bill, Feldstein's criticism is that it was too small (Paul Krugman has also made this claim) and that the money went to the wrong places:

Experience shows that the most cost-effective form of temporary fiscal stimulus is direct government spending. The most obvious way to achieve that in 2009 was to repair and replace the military equipment used in Iraq and Afghanistan that would otherwise have to be done in the future. But the Obama stimulus had nothing for the Defense Department. Instead, President Obama allowed the Democratic leadership in Congress to design a hodgepodge package of transfers to state and local governments, increased transfers to individuals, temporary tax cuts for lower-income taxpayers, etc. So we got a bigger deficit without economic growth.