Oops

It turns out that the "targeted, timely and temporary" line (see my post dated February 1, 2009) comes from Obama himself—though not, it seems, as an original thought. It was voiced in the past by Larry Summers, economic adviser to the new administration (and blockhead former Harvard president... I don't like him and don't trust him).

To quote the Belfer Center newsletter, summer 2008,
{http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18299/spotlight.html}

"Summers was one of the first economists to diagnose the current financial crisis, and his early calls to action fundamentally influenced the debate. As far back as November 25, 2007, when most were still scrambling to understand the problems, Summers was already looking toward solutions. He said then that the government needed to have a fiscal policy package "on stand-by," in case the situation worsened.

"By December 19, 2007, he was calling for fiscal stimulus that was "timely, targeted and temporary"—exactly what Congress passed nearly two months later."
-->Wait, did Congress pass a stimulus bill in February 2008?? Where was I?

Btw, Summers was on the board of the Belfer Center.

In researching the question on the Internet (having read, don't remember where, that the TTT line was Democratic in origin), I found that, oddly, the title of an October 2008 article by Robert D. Atkinson is "Timely, Targeted, Temporary and Transformative: Crafting an Innovation-based Economic Stimulus Package"...
{http://www.itif.org/files/TimelyTargetedTemporaryTransformative.pdf}

so I'm wondering whether the 'Information Technology and Innovation Foundation' (source of the Atkinson piece) is connected to Summers and/or the Belfer Center, or if this TTT business has such a nice ring to it that it has been and will be tossed back and forth forever. (I did find a very recent piece by a Jersey Republican congressman who used the words without crediting anyone.)

Actually, I still think that the Republicans decided to use those words against the person who had last spoken them aloud. Tho' that's not exactly what I said on February 1.