The President-Elect gives his weekly radio address, with the accent on some of the same themes hit upon during his economic speech given this week. This address has the President elect highlighting a report by economic advisors Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein that analyze the potential results of the stimulus package that will be proposed by the new administration. I have posted that report below. Paul Krugman over at the New York Times has already critiqued the report, and calls the Obama stimulus package “too weak”. From Krugman:

So this looks like an estimate from the Obama team itself saying — as best as I can figure it out — that the plan would close only around a third of the output gap over the next two years.

One more point: the estimate of what would happen to the economy in the absence of a stimulus plan seems kind of optimistic. The chart above has unemployment ex-stimulus peaking at 9 percent in the first quarter of 2010 and coming down through the year; the CBO estimates an average unemployment rate of 9 percent for 2010, so the Obama people are more optimistic than the CBO, and a lot more optimistic than I am.

Bottom line: even if I use the Romer-Bernstein estimates instead of my own — there really isn’t much difference — this plan looks too weak.

Read the Krugman blog here.

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