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As I noted yesterday, the Trump administration is now engaged in huge fiscal stimulus. As measured by the CBO's estimate of the cyclically adjusted budget deficit, we're back to levels not seen since 2012 1/ 
So I did a counterfactual: what would have happened to the economy under Obama if Republicans had allowed Trump levels of stimulus? Here's the result 2/
For wonks, I've assumed a multiplier of 1.3, consistent with Blanchard-Leigh, and an Okun coefficient of 2. 3/
What this chart suggests is that GOP-enforced austerity had a huge impact in retarding the recovery. If they'd been willing to tolerate the kind of deficits they're happy with now, the Obama years would have looked much better 4/
