Joining us to talk about all of this is Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com.
Mr. MARK ZANDI (Chief Economist, Moody's Economy.com): It's good to be with you, John.
Some housing advocates like the idea but economist Mark Zandi with MoodysEconomy.com is skeptical.
Mark Zandi forecasts that the sequester would knock about 0.5% off of GDP in 2013.
Zandi's office at Moody's Economy.com is just outside the 6th District in the town of West Chester.
Mark Zandi, head of Moody's Economy.com, favoured more help for the jobless and a payroll tax holiday.
Mr. ZANDI: Well, there is a resounding vote that we need rate cuts.
Mr. MARK ZANDI (Economist, MoodysEconomy.com): It's still a voluntary plan and I don't think that's going to be enough.
Mark Zandi says there's plenty for Obama's economic team to do right now.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said a higher minimum wage would boost incomes for some poorer workers.
"The government's fiscal austerity is kicking in and hitting the economy hard, " says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.
Even though the economy will factor into the voting equation, it's difficult to parse who might benefit most, says Zandi.
Mr. MARK ZANDI (Chief economist, Moodyseconomy.com): You know, in the grand scheme of things, this is still very, very small.
Economist Zandi offers a familiar refrain on how to improve some of these states hindered with weak business climates: Invest in education.
Zandi believes it's largely the trend line that affects a voter's sense of well-being, because people project that trend into the future.
"At the end of the day, I'm not really sure it makes a difference, " says Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com.
Economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy Web site says that rising oil and gasoline prices have not necessarily pulled up the price of other goods.
Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics, a consultancy, believes that letting these expire would shave 1% off gross domestic product and 1m jobs from total employment.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, points out that export-related manufacturing, in particular, is highly productive and therefore less prone to mass hiring.
Gasoline prices play an "outsized role in influencing the way people think about the economy and their own financial well-being and how they vote, " says economist Mark Zandi.
Mr. ZANDI: Well, thank goodness, he's now sounding an alarm.
Many Republican economists, such as the respected Mark Zandi, who advised John McCain in his contest with Mr Obama, agree that without it, things would have been even worse.
ECONOMIST: What did Barack Obama��s stimulus package really achieve?
Mr. ZANDI: Well, the idea is that many new homeowners - folks that got into the subprime loans in the last couple of years - are now facing a payment reset.
"Housing market activity revives when house prices decline sufficiently to restore housing affordability and entice buyers to step up and make a purchase, " says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.
"They are nervous, " says Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com.
Zandi advocated a stimulus of at least six hundred billion dollars in the first year, which is much bigger than what the White House proposed, and other Republican economists proposed similar figures.
Zandi says he expects tourism and the leisure and hospitality issues to start recovering by 2012, but metro areas that have been battered by the bust, such as Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla.
Mark Zandi, chief economist and cofounder of Moody's Economy.com, says he expects manufacturing and distribution centers (think Atlanta and Dallas) to show the first signs of life as the recovery unfolds this year.
"These states are lower cost areas, but their labor forces are not competitive and therefore are not going to attract venture capital money or big outside investments, " says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.
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