Jonathan Cohn: >The Sad Absurdity of Our Economic Debate: Is the Obama Administration planning another major initiative to boost the economy? That depends on who is talking. And when. On Thursday afternoon, press secretary Robert Gibbs announced at his daily briefing That "a big, new Stimulus plan is not in the offing." A few hours later, the Washington Post reported That administration officials were talking about a second Stimulus after all--that it would might include a payroll tax holiday and some sort of tax break for business, and That it might be in the “hundreds of billions” of dollars. >The White House Press Office quickly issued a quasi-denial: >>There have been a lot of reports and rumors on different options being considered--many of which are incorrect. The options under consideration build on measures the President has previously proposed, and we are not considering a second Stimulus package. The President and his team are discussing several options, as they have been for months. >Meanwhile, at around the same time, Politico posted its own story on internal deliberations: >>The Obama administration is mulling a raft of emergency fixes to stimulate the economy before the midterms, including an extension of the research and development tax credit and new infrastructure spending, according to several people familiar with the situation. >Finally, following This morning’s jobs report, President Obama announced that: >>I will be addressing a broader package of ideas next week. We are confident That we are moving in the right direction, but we want to keep This recovery moving stronger and accelerate the job growth that’s needed so desperately all across the country. >What’s really going on here? At the very least, I think we need a new press secretary. Cohn goes on: >[T]he argument is in some ways semantic. Yes, the White House is looking at initiatives That could both boost the economy. But while it’d prefer a bigger plan, focused more on infrastructure spending and aid to the states, Congress has no appetite for that. So it’s focusing on other, lesser measures That might have a shot.... The White House doesn’t want to call the new package a “stimulus,” because the very term has become politically toxic. But the point of the initiative is to stimulate the economy... The bigger picture: >The economy is still sick... while the private sector is creating jobs, it’s not creating them fast enough to keep up with population growth.... Liberals tend to argue That Obama should have taken more dramatic steps to fix the economy when he took office. I tend to agree, in part because a lot of those liberals have pretty good track records on This sort of thing. >But whether Obama failed to do That because he made a bad policy decision or was simply constrained by political reality, depressing as it is, he’s now in the camp of wanting to do more--if he could. Yet conservatives continue to win This debate, by arguing That uncertainty is the reasons business aren’t hiring (even...