I wish I had a strong feeling one way or the other about President Obama's -- and therefore all Americans' -- stimulus package.I read as many thoughtful articles on the topic as possible but I still end up with a shrug. Similar but much smaller bills may have been effective in the past but in fact, we don't really know if they did save the day -- we have nothing to compare them with. It's not like we gave a stimulus package to half the economy and left the other side out, to compare results. There's no way to test what would have happened if we took another approach or did nothing. And today's situation is not the same as yesterday's.
I think I speak for many average Americans when I say "Frankly, I haven't got a clue." It's not that I don't give a damn, because I certainly do. But I'm no economist and have no access to the heavyweight analyses our elected officials in Congress are supposedly using to determine what the bill should contain and whether they will vote for it or not.
Frankly, I'm not sure our senators and representatives understand it much either; they just feel sure they have to do something to save the nation. And they're getting enormous pressure from their colleagues and constituents. Not sure I'd want to be in their shoes.My own grandfather was a lawyer in Washington during the 1930s and worked with the FDR administration on the New Deal. He died long before I could ask him about it but perhaps I've got government bailout in the blood. On the other hand, that blood has thinned over the last seven decades. Again, I shrug.
This morning, we have Nobel Prize-winning liberal Paul Krugman arguing in the New York Times that because the economy is "on the edge of catastrophe," the current stimulus bill isn't even big enough. And on the other, there's conservative Charles Krauthammer,who calls the bill debate a "frenzy of old-politics influence peddling" in the Washington Post. Like his Republican friends in Congress, he wants tax cuts instead. And then there's Jane and John Doe, who are expected to fork over the dough, throwing up their hands in confusion.
It would be one thing if we were starting to see any fruit from the bank bailout fro
m last fall. Even a few buds on the tree might placate those who fear it's just good money running after bad. But we haven't seem much from those billions -- why, in many people's mind, should this new stimulus bill be any different?Didn't we lend the automakers billions of dollars to pull themselves together and still General Motors might fold by the end of March? I want to believe a big, fat stimulus bill would work, and work quickly. Then again, belief may be the key word here -- believing it will work may help determine the outcome. My shoulders are up around my ears.
What do you think?
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O'Really?
Naqib's Daughter
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Salon.com
Comments
Frankly, I hope the bill passes with only a little Republican support. Then, I am hoping the stimulus works even if slowly. The Republicans have taken a big risk by not strongly supporting the stimulus package and I hope they pay for it in the 2010 election.
The TARP funds are a whole different thing--the new rules on transparency and executive pay caps should help.
In a severe recession, such as we are currently experiencing, a large fraction of the nation's productive resources - factories, workers, and yes, savings - are simply not being utilized. These productive resources sitting idle represents a cost that, once lost, can never be regained.
The second characteristic of a severe recession is that it often reflects a profound lack of confidence on the part of consumers and businesses. Just as in boom times both consumers and firms can become over-confident in their ability to pay for purchases, so too in recessions do we become overly pessimistic. In such cases the Federal government, having access to almost unlimited borrowing capacity, can step in and provide a market for some of the excess capacity the recession has created. If the Government uses the stimulus to pay for goods and services that are otherwise useful to the nation's economy - be they infrastructure improvements such as roads and bridges, or investments in the nations future capacity to generate income - such as education or research, then the economic power of the stimulus is further multiplied.
As one example of how heavy Government spending led to future national wealth far in excess of its original cost, one need look no further than the original 1940s GI Bill. By paying for a college education for an entire generation of returning US servicepeople, we created literally millions of physicians, engineers, accountants, lawyers, and businesspeople. These highly-trained professionals earned far higher salaries during their subsequent careers, and paid far higher income taxes as a result. But they also created companies and entire industries in which millions of other Americans worked, paid taxes, and further increased the national wealth.
Second, about the home budget thing, believe it or not people that's how the majority of this country has been living for the past ten years, because of the greed that has been going on in Wall Street and on Main Street. This Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, I don't give a flying fig about anyone else as long as I got mine attitude that has permeated the higher ups in this country has been allowed to get out of hand. There is nothing in the laws of this country that says a stock holder has a right or an entitlement to a return on their investment. In fact just the opposite is true a stock broker must relay to you that a stock investment or other kind of piece of paper is just that and it could end up loosing money, including your initial investment, there are no guaranties, and that is written into the law. Everyone who has an IRA or a 401k owns stock in these companies and you need to start removing the scum that is stealing your hard earned money from you. Make these company's that are holding YOUR stocks know how you feel, attend stock broker meetings, crash them if you have to. Don't be a Patsy any more!