This morning, Barack Obama’s transition team released an economic evaluation of the president-elect’s stimulus plan, making the case for an urgent infusion of public spending to right the economy. Christine Romero, the chair-designate for Obama’s National Economic Council, discusses the report in the video below.

Economist and columnist Paul Krugman, who criticized the stimulus last week as insufficiently large, applauded the Obama team for their “clear, honest assessment” of the plan, but remains unconvinced that it can deal with the current crisis:

Here’s one way to look at it: [Romer and Bernstein] show the effects of the plan rapidly fading out during 2011. Yet at the end of 2011 the unemployment rate is still 6.3%. Meanwhile, the CBO estimates the natural rate, aka “full employment,” at just 4.8%. Why does the plan go away with the job undone?

You can read the full report below (use the ‘zoom’ or ‘full screen’ buttons for larger text), or see the pdf version here:
<object id=”_ds_3486860″ name=”_ds_3486860″ width=”670″ height=”550″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” data=”http://viewer.docstoc.com/”><param name=”FlashVars” value=”doc_id=3486860&mem_id=403469&doc_type=pdf&fullscreen=0″ /><param name=”movie” value=”http://viewer.docstoc.com/”/><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always” /><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” /></object><br /><font size=”1″><a href=”http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3486860/Obama-Stimulus-Job-Impact-Report”>Obama Stimulus Job Impact Report</a> – <a href=”http://www.docstoc.com/”>Free Legal Forms</a></font>