STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Economics may be called the dismal science, but one of its leading practitioners has tried to keep a sense of humor. Gregory Mankiw was once a top economic advisor to President Bush. Now he's teaching at Harvard, and he's also writing a blog that is collecting three-word summaries of proposals for Congress to stimulate the economy. We heard about such an idea this hour - things like state aid and road building.
Mr. Mankiw predicts that President-elect Obama will want a stimulus that is helpful, hopeful, and humongous. Mankiw says critics fear it might end up pointless, political, and pork-filled. And that prompted his readers to suggest more three-word descriptions of the plan. Apparently, they're not fans. Their suggestions include big, bloated, and borrowed; clumsy, corrupt, and counterproductive; expansive, extensive, and expensive; and also most intriguingly ultimate, utilitarian, utopianism. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.