Yet more evidence that nobody thinks that the Bush administration's economic proposals are going to do anything to boost aggregate demand in the short run. Paul Krugman put this best: the Bush administration's modus operandi is to propose "solutions" that have nothing to do with the problems they pretend to address, but that do advance other administration priorities that they don't think can gain support on their own.

washingtonpost.com: Bush Stimulus Plan Is Out of Site: By Al Kamen

Monday, January 27, 2003; Page A17

When the White House Council of Economic Advisers explained President Bush's $674 billion economic stimulus proposal on Jan. 7, the plan seemed to suggest only 190,000 jobs would be created in 2003.

Economists and Democratic critics went wild, saying Bush should be "embarrassed" to put forth such a plan, and pointing out that 1.5 million jobs have disappeared in the last couple of years, according to a New York Times account the next day. By Jan. 9, the CEA plan, which had been posted on the White House Web site, was nowhere to be found. It was gone.

What happened? Well, one big problem was that the first version apparently didn't make clear -- though it's stated plainly -- that the 190,000 jobs figure was a half-year total, based on an assumption that the plan would take effect in July.

But it's been three weeks now and still no revised version. Obviously there's some tinkering going on. Some critics have said that there's a reduction in job growth down the line in the plan, so the bean counters probably will have to respond to that criticism.

And of course there are all sorts of fancy variables and synergies and whatnots to be taken into account. But to the non-economist, the plan raises some obvious concerns. If it's a $674 billion plan over about 10 years and it hopes to create, as Bush says, a couple million jobs, that's $337,000 a job over 10 years, for a cost of $33,700 per year per job. (This year, it's $177,000 per job.) So why not just pass out the money?

No doubt non-economists will be set straight, in some decent facsimile of the English language, when the CEA puts the newer, better version up on its Web site. Meanwhile, visitors to the site where the original analysis was posted are told:

"The file you have attempted to access cannot be found. Please check the URL you entered to make sure there were no typing or copy-and-paste errors. You may also use our search facility to help you find the file you are looking for.

"Please note: many files associated with the previous administration have been removed from this server . . . "

Ah ha! It was Bill Clinton's plan!