The Washington Post has a letter from Arlen Specter (R-PA) explaining why he supported the stimulus package. Here are a few snippets and some thoughts.
I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason: The country cannot afford not to take action.
Wrong, Senator. You forgot one important word in that statement. The country cannot afford to take inappropriate action. As I’ve already posted, the CBO believes that this bill will cause more harm to the economy in the long run than no action at all. Unfortunately, you have chosen not to take heed of their warning.
The unemployment figures announced Friday, the latest earnings reports and the continuing crisis in banking make it clear that failure to act will leave the United States facing a far deeper crisis in three or six months. By then the cost of action will be much greater — or it may be too late.
While I agree that some action may be beneficial, I am not victimized enough by Obama’s fear tactics to believe that we are at a point where we must act or the country will perish. Any action we take must be calculated and deliberate. Unfortunately, a good majority of this bill should be dealt with in separate appropriations bills.
The legislation known as the “moderates” bill, hammered out over two days by Sens. Susan Collins, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and myself, preserves the job-creating and tax relief goals of President Obama’s stimulus plan while cutting less-essential provisions — many of them worthy in themselves — that are better left to the regular appropriations process.
While I am happy that you took steps to mitigate some of the inappropriate content of this bill, there is much further to go.
Our $780 billion bill would save or create up to 4 million jobs, helping to offset the loss of 3.6 million jobs since December 2007. The bill cuts some $110 billion from the $890 billion Senate version, which would actually be $940 billion if floor amendments for tax credits on home and car purchases and money for the National Institutes of Health are retained.
So in the best anticipated scenario, we are looking at $195,000 of taxpayer dollars for each job created. The majority of these jobs are temporary (for the duration of whatever project they are working on). Average US salary is around $40,000/year. Long-term benefits of this bill aren’t even being discussed, so I must assume that they are negligible. The math isn’t making this look like a good bill, and that’s using your numbers. The CBO estimates say it could be as little as 1.3 million jobs created, putting the per job cost of this bill at $600,000. Now the math is just sickening.
“In politics,” John Kennedy used to say, “nobody gets everything, nobody gets nothing and everybody gets something.” My colleagues and I have tried to balance the concerns of both left and right with the need to act quickly for the sake of our country. The moderates’ compromise, which faces a cloture vote today, is the only bill with a reasonable chance of passage in the Senate.
I appreciate, understand, and even agree that politics is often about compromise. I also believe that there comes a time to stand in defense of your country and do what you can to prevent making things worse. This bill will raise our national debt by nearly 10%, increase government dependence, and quite possibly make our currently bad economic situation even worse. How is this compromise?
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Posted under Economy
Written by admin on February 10, 2009
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