By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
Top congressional Republicans are attacking President Barack Obama's stimulus plan. And the GOP offers a few troubling facts about it.
For example:
-- Sen. John McCain and other GOP leaders want hefty tax cuts in the package. That would put money more directly into the hands of Americans. As consumers, they would make choices on how to spend their money, rather than allowing the federal government to make that choice.
-- Republicans don't want a Christmas-tree like approach to the stimulus package, and properly so. One target for GOP leaders like House Minority Leader John Boehner is several hundred million dollars in the Democratic plan to pay for contraceptives as part of a family planning program.
-- And Republicans also are trumpeting the fact that a Congressional Budget Office review found that billions of the stimulus bill wouldn't really create jobs for up to two years.
But what, exactly, are Republicans going to do to stop Obama's stimulus plan from going forward?
The GOP does not have the votes in the Senate or the House to kill any Democratic plan.
And some in the GOP acknowledge that -- if they appear to be dawdling and holding up the stimulus plan -- the stock market could plummet as it did the first time the Congress voted down a bailout package last fall.
So Republicans must stay on target in promoting some of their good ideas.
The single best one is to strip out proposals that aren't really part of a plan to quickly boost the U.S. economy.
That especially means not spending funds on infrastructure projects that won't be completed for years.
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Reverse euphoria
It appears the rush to spend billions that we don't have is becoming reverse financial euphoria. I hope it works better than the "affordable housing" of the Clinton times that put millions of people in homes they could not afford or pay for. That turned into a misleading financial euphoria that the people always believe to be prosperity. No one wants to pay the fiddler but somebody always does. Bush is different than Hoover. Hoover tried unsuccessfully to stop the financial euphoria and was blasted unmercifully for financial sabotage. His fate was taking the blame for the depression. Bush did nothing but try to put more fire under the bubble. Unfortunately for him, the blow-up came before the election and he will wear the scars for his lifetime.
Stimulus plan opponents: please sit down, be quiet
If the John McCain and GOP complaints about the stimulus plan are focused on income taxes, please remember President Obama addressed that fully during the campaign and he won, so sit down and shut up. That plan promised tax cuts for 95% of taxpayers but increases on the other 5%, for whom McCain obviously speaks.
A Congressional Budget Office report last year revealed that some 40% of the $10tn national debt is directly traceable to W's tax cuts. So the 43rd president's friends in the military industrial complex not only got tax cuts but billions in government money to supply materiel for a falsely premised war.
What's wrong with that picture?
Lame arguments against stimulus pkg
This column would be laughable if the topic weren't so serious. So let me take it apart piece by piece - or maybe I'll let my 6 year old do it, she has more sense than you.
First: TAX CUTS do NOTHING to stimulate the economy. This was proved by YOUR presidunce Curious George Bush. Every piece of data reflects the fact that the majority of the tax rebate monies went to purchas low-cost imported items - hello Wal-Mart??
Second: To rail against birth control funding is the song of the truly hypocritical. I'm guessing all you boys like to have sex, as much as possible, right? But oh no, let's not stop women - or girls - from dropping kid after kid that neither they, nor we as a society, can afford. For every $10 spent on birth control, communities save a minimum of $1000. Not to mention churches, charities, etc. who are constantly hitting us up for dough to buy things for kids whose parents didn't give a thought to whether they could afford to have them.
Third: You actually think infrastructure projects that go on for years is BAD? Some road projects lead to other road projects lead to bridge projects - all employing hundreds of people at good wages.
I'm sick of the baseless complaints coming from the same geniuses who got us into this bankrupt mess. Give it up, losers.
Amazing...
Wow, I am amazed that you can sit back and call everyone who disagrees with you a loser, but you can't spell correctly or use proper grammar! Go back to English class, and maybe then we will be able to have some appreciation for what you have to say.
What is really "laughable" about this is your ignorance! I hope your six-year old grows up to be smarter than you are!
I'm pretty sure
"presidunce" was an intentional misspelling.
Forgot to Mention...
I forgot to mention that I was replying to mamalago's comment, just in case there was any confusion.
Boehner...
is attempting to be relevant. The GOP currently has no power except to make noise in public forums, which is something they're really good at.
Too bad you didn't pay
Too bad you didn't pay attention to reality when you wrote this opinion, or to REAL ECONOMISTS!!!!! Listening to Paul Krugman would be nice, who states that we need more, not less, in this package: it doesn't go far enough. I suppose his Nobel Prize trumps your... what???? If Republicans didn't look upon infrastructure as PORK, which it isn't always, instead of necessary expenditures, which it often is, there wouldn't be as much for them to gripe about. I saw Dufus Boehner complaining that giving the states money for education isn't any kind of economic stimulus: except, of course, that every state in the union has had to dramatically cut money from their education funds, often the LAST place for serious cuts. Restoring it allows them to put money back into those shovel-ready road, building, etc., projects they had to put on the back burner because of the economic mess.
Let's face it: Republicans just don't get it: that is, unless they really try.
Poor economic analyses by Yael
I usually find myself more in agreement than disagreement with your columns, but macroeconomics appears to be way out of your league. 1)Tax cuts work more slowly than expenditures in stimulating the economy. Tax cuts are not all spent as implied, but can be saved --and certainly will be if Republicans have their way since cuts go the most affluent. 2)Boehner's Christmas tree analogy is a canard, since any $900M package will be big. A family planning program spends money, and produces potential long-term welfare benefits as well as immediate effects. 3) Any tax cuts and even spending(not just Obama's) will have major employment effects only from 18-24 months after implementation. The economy should begin to improve before then, hopefully, but employment will lag other economic effects to the extent just indicated. Yael, don't pay much attention to Republicans. Their track record includes the Great Depression and the current economic crisis. Their trickle down economics is fickle -- and oriented to no government, no regulation, and "free" markets for thieves, fanfarons, and cads.
Krugman's column
is worth a read -- he addresses some of the bad-faith arguments the Republicans are bringing up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/opinion/26krugman.html?_r=1&em