Additional layoffs in Kansas City and around the country this week underscore the need for Congress to move quickly to strengthen the economy. The massive Democratic plan promises to do so in many ways, although improvements should be made in it before the Senate vote next week.
To prevent a downward economic spiral, Washington must focus on measures that can help immediately or in the very near future. Construction projects for five or 10 years down the road may well be good ideas, but they won’t get today’s economy out of the rut.
Tax cuts: About a third of the House-approved plan would go to tax cuts. That’s a reasonable percentage, although Republicans wanted to see it higher.
Tax cuts can provide an economic boost fairly quickly — particularly when they go to people with low or modest incomes. These are the people who need the most help in a recession, and they are likely to promptly spend the money and stimulate the economy.
Some people will save the money from their tax cuts rather than spend it, but even saved dollars will give people more financial flexibililty and confidence in the future. That, too, can help.
Food stamps and unemployment benefits: On the spending side, the House bill would pump billions of additional dollars a year into food stamps and extended unemployment assistance.
Again, this serves a double purpose: helping Americans who need assistance the most, while ensuring that the money will quickly find its way back into the economy. This will support businesses, protect some jobs and create others.
The resistance of Republican lawmakers to such plans in the midst of a severe recession seems churlish, particularly after a decade in which the GOP approved tax cuts and other government policies that produced a financial bonanza for those at the very top of the economic ladder.
State aid: Federal assistance to the states is another good idea, one that would provide some badly needed help in both Kansas and Missouri as state leaders wrestle with budget shortfalls.
Federal dollars can help them avoid harmful layoffs, cuts in essential public services and the resulting economic dislocations.
Increasing federal funds for Medicaid will be particularly helpful for the states and will help people deal with the medical problems that come with tough economic times. These problems result from skipped doctor’s visits, unfilled prescriptions, anxiety over lost jobs, drug abuse and so on.
Infrastructure and health care: The bill’s provisions for infrastructure spending are more problematic. As the Congressional Budget Office points out, much of this spending would take place more than a year and a half from now.
Some proposed spending on health care would not start, theoretically, until the next presidential administration.
Republican critics are correct in saying these projects have little or nothing to do with jump-starting today’s economy.
President Obama has signaled a willingness to compromise with the GOP, and these long-term spending plans would be good things for the Democrats to give up — at least in this legislation.
The plan will require massive borrowing by the federal government, which is already deeply in the red.
This borrowing can be justified by the current crisis, but it can’t go on forever. Everyone should remember that federal spending will need to be cut back as soon as the economic recovery starts to take hold.
At that point, state and local governments should be able to shift back to their own revenue sources — and Uncle Sam will need to start paying off his credit cards.









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And what about the good
And what about the good health of airline companies with recession still rife and airlines facing low number of passenger the industry is facing really tough times.
Keith.
Aircraft Parts
I see a lot of problems with the current package.
There is lots of money proposed to be spent for pet projects that really to little or nothing to stimulate the economy. Spin it how you will, it is PORK.
Funding the 2009 census with stimulus money? Come on. That is money that would have to be spent any way. How can that be stimulus for the economy?
Money for the arts? Yes, the arts are a good cause, but just how much will that stimulate the economy?
Money for the yacht repair business in Florida. Nothing more than pork.
And the list could go on.
Let's separate good causes from true stimulus. If we do, the total dollars in this package will go down enough that we may actually be able to afford it.
another "Winnie the Lib" Column
Please Winnie this Porkulous bill is nothing but spending, FDR's actions prolonged the depression. Get Real.
Please, Rouge
For the love of God post the link to whatever rightwing nutcase started that crap about Roosevelt prolonging the Depression. I've got to have something to laugh at now that Bush is out of office and I don't have a daily update of how he stepped on his neener today.
The New "New Deal"
The current stimulus legislation being considered should be entitled "The massive giveback to the constituency that helped the Liberals into power."
I consider myself fairly conservative economically and yet I agree that something needs to be done to try and help us out of this funk. No-one knows exactly what this something is but many people know what it is not and that is massive spending on Pork and classic liberal programs that expand government.
I disagree that the tax cuts are a reasonable percentage. I think that they constitute a reasonable amount but the total cost of the bill is way too high.
Food Stamps and unemployment are well targeted at this time. Well-vetted state aid proposals would also be a wise use of Federal dollars. The Infrastructure and health care proposals however are a complete joke. It might make sense to fund the line items that the CBO believes would begin using the funds in 2009.(It has been reported that less than 20% of the proposals would fall into this category) Everything else is business as usual pork giveaways.
Anyone who has saved their money or who has built equity in their home or other property should be outraged at the level of this Federal Borrowing. Anything that you own now is being devalued and exponentially devalued in the future due to the inflationary pressure that printing money has on our economy.
If you think that the hyperbole about this stimulus package is accurate, then think back to the 700 million allocated to ease creadit and let me know how you think that worked out. In other words, if this goes forward, please hold those who pushed it responsible when it becomes time.
I have no doubt that if Obama asked a
Republican Senate/Democratic House for stimulus, that he would get something that would be very beneficial to this country. I would not wager that a fully Republican controlled Congress would provide constructive stimulus however.
Similarly, when I look at the Democratic leadership, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd, I see clowns who are ready to reap the spoils of political wars. The current legislation proves this. Please do not be fooled. We may not be able to stop this tsunami, but we can always remember.
We need more Dedos and fewer Rogues
It's time for responsible members from the center of each party to step up and develop a proposal free of political dogma. If McConnell and the true believers on the right want to sit on their thumbs and do nothing but whine let them. Likewise, now is not the time for funding every pet program on the democratic agenda regardless of worthiness. Concentrate on immediate job creating spending. Cut my payroll taxes so the income flows to me NOW. A credit or refund next year won't help.
If we don't protect the freedom of speech how will we know who the a$$#@les are?
There is a prominent conservative out there
that has put forth an idea. The idea is to take the total number (what is it now, $900 billion) and parcel out 54% to the so-called pork projects, and take the other 46% and use as tax cuts (mostly corporate - since they are among the highest in the world). It would appease the conservatives and liberals all. That prominent conservative - well it's Rush. So, he's not just a "just say no" conservative. He has offered a basic plan.
One little problem
He's also completely uneducated and, by his own account, an entertainer. Have you checked with Michael Moore on this one, if we're going to be listening to people with no standing whatsoever to comment?
I don't know Edith - is Michael Moore offering
a plan? I realize that Rush is considered evil in your eyes, but he offered an idea. And since the House Republicans all voted against the existing plan, maybe it would be a compromise. I realize that the numbers are there for the Dems to do what they want - but I thought Obama wanted it to be bi-partisan.
An interesting philosophical point
If you consult an expert, you can base your acceptance of the advice on the expert's track record and on their credentials.
If you consult a layman, you can base your acceptance of the advice on your own judgement of what you hear. But if you have the expertise to make a useful judgement of the value of a non-expert's advice, why would you need either the expert or the layman?
Edith - non of which is relevant
Unless you are saying Nancy Pelosi is more qualified to advise on economic issues than Rush Limbaugh. The last time I heard, they didn't require you to be an economist to hold a House seat.
No, but Paul Volcker is
Politicians aren't there to be experts. They're there to take input from experts, staff who get and keep their jobs by being useful, lobbyists, and constituents; they put it together with what they can get bought by enough of their colleagues to get legislation passed. Nancy Pelosi is an economist no more than Julia Roberts does her own hair and negotiates her own contracts.
Rush Limbaugh has no background whatsoever in economics, either academically or in the real world. Why should you listen to him, instead of anyone else? If you CAN make a reasoned judgment about what he says, why would you not simply devise your own plan, since you presumably have more education than he does AND more practical experience.
HmmmmMMMMMMM?
Edith - then we disagree
Rush Limbaugh has common sense. The same common sense that says that if you want to stimulate the economy - stimulate, as in jump start (as opposed to a trickle charge), you have to get money out in the economy. And the best way to do that is to give people and businesses more of their income. That's immediate -which is what we need. And on the other side - the other 54% - for longer term projects that needed to be done anyway. Now if you want to focus on the messenger instead of the message, that is your hangup. Rush doesn't just make this stuff up - it's worked before.
Of course we disagree
"Common sense" in this context is as ridiculous as saying you think that airplanes should be engineered with common sense, you would prefer your heart surgeon to be a nice person with common sense versus one with all that silly book larnin', and that tensor calculus is a matter, not of education, but of just common-sensin' it out.
Except that macroeconomics is VASTLY more complex than any of these pursuits. If common sense were all that were necessary Herbert Hoover could've common-sensed his way out of the Depression and Ronald Reagan wouldn't have had to triple our national debt to get us out of a relatively ordinary recession.
And we don't even have to go into any of Rush Limbaugh's many personal failings.
Edith - you are giving the Dems waaay too much credit
There are no "macroeconomics" involved here. They are using the economic crisis to promote their liberal tax & spend agenda. And they think the people won't notice because they are "stimulating" the economy. If macroeconomics were involved, there'd be a lot more time spent planning than 10 days.
And the "relative ordinary" recession that Reagan came into - it was only double-digit inflation, 9% unemployment & 22% prime rate. If that's a "relatively ordinary" recession, an extraordinary one will be doomsday.
And even though you didn't mention them, any personal failings of Rush would be irrelevant. The same way Willie's failings are irrelevant.
But here's the difference
Bill Clinton didn't lecture Americans about the sanctity of the marriage bond.
Rush Limbaugh,
-Draft dodger
-Unable to establish a relationship with a human female
-Member of no visible church
-Scion of a family of three generations of lawyers
-Caught with a slug of unprescribed drugs
-Never worked a day in his life with his hands
-Dropped out of college after one semester, being unable to pass anything, including ballroom dancing
lectures America on patriotism, family values, religion, the virtues of blue-collar hard work, the economy, and what bad, bad people trial lawyers are.
Sure. Irrelevant. And, oh, yeah-what economic plan was Willie proposing?
Edith - it does not mean anything
If he was a liberal, you'd be talking about everything he has overcome.
No, that would be Bill Clinton
.
Yes he does, and no it hasn't
What's worker before? Trickle down supply side economics? Not in the 20 years that two Reagan and three Bush administrations tried it. Tax cuts? It's been since since 2001 that the Bush cuts began and, well, look around. We're still waiting for all that promised prosperity.
Actually business cuts for plant & equipment expansion that would eventually lead to new jobs would be ok but anything that goes straight to the bottom line and into the pockets of CEOs or perks is just corporate welfare. Payroll tax cuts that will likely get spent right away would be ok as a stimulus too but please no tax deduction or end of year credit. Next years refund won't help us today.
About that tired corporate tax rate argument that kepps popping up. The effective rate is about 25%. Any corp. paying more than that should fire the CFO.
If we don't protect the freedom of speech how will we know who the a$$#@les are?
Comments on the big 0's Stymie Package...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123326587231330357.html
[snort]
From one who constantly complained that Obama lacks experience, and now Jenny's advocating that we take Rush's advice on how to run the country's economy?
Interface - as opposed
to Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid? Throw in Barney Frank & Chris Dodd, and you've got an economic disaster. And Mr. Obama - where did his elevated economic experience come from? Let's face it - Obama got elected by Jon Stewart watchers.