Posted by
HaskinsNews.com -Justin Haskins on Thursday, January 29, 2009 2:03:51 AM
The current economic stimulus plan designed and proposed by both President Barack Obama and congressional Democratic Party members is lacking in design as much as it is in purpose. The very goals set forward by Barack Obama, the plan’s main supporter, are supposedly to stimulate the economy and provide advanced economic development. The details of the plan itself, however, are extremely ineffective in completing those goals. A great amount of the roughly $825 billion that make up the stimulus plan is being directed toward programs having absolutely no immediate connection to our current economic state (Heritage Foundation, 2009). $120 billion is being allocated for local school districts and state education programs, $2 billion for health information technology, $22 billion for the repairing of public housing, $6 billion for broadband internet expansion, and $87 billion for a “temporary increase” in the Medicaid matching rate (CQ Weekly, Jan. 2009). These programs have very little to do with economic expansion. In fact, one could certainly make the argument that they may be government services designed to help Americans but should not be considered apart of an economic stimulus package. In addition to the list of programs just provided, another $650 million is set aside for digital television coupons, as well as $600 million for government cars, and $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (Heritage Foundation, 2009). It is clear that these programs are not meant to increase jobs or provide a more stable economic environment despite the fact that they are being placed within an economic stimulus package.
Furthermore, these kinds of spending policies have been ridiculed in the past by Barack Obama himself. In July of 2008, Barack Obama’s economic policy advisor Jason Furman criticized the Bush administration’s spending by declaring, "These have been years of unprecedented fiscal irresponsibility. That's an important issue in this election because Sen. McCain is proposing to continue the same Bush economic policies that put our economy on this dangerous path and that will drive America even deeper into debt" (CNN.com, Jul. 2008). Furman continued by stating that Obama will “restore balance and fairness to our economy by cutting wasteful spending, shutting corporate loopholes and tax havens, and rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, while making health care affordable and putting a middle class tax cut in the pocket of 95 percent of workers and their families." The year before George W. Bush took office, the United States of America held a total public debt of $5.67 trillion (Wikipedia, Jan. 2009). Our current public debt is listed at $10.626 trillion (Treasury Direct, 2009). Therefore, if one does the math, the deficit grew by $4.95 trillion over Bush’s eight year term from 2001-2008. That averages out to an astounding $618 billion per year average. Even this figure, the largest annual average increase under one sitting president in the history of our country, is being dwarfed by Barack Obama’s stimulus package. The $825 billion figure set aside by Obama and the United States Congress could grow to as large as $1.2 trillion, and that is assuming that the debt will be paid off as scheduled.
One must question the validity of a stimulus package that will create so much debt. Even it miraculously leads to a surge in our economy within the next few months that is so large that the estimated $450 billion budget deficit evaporates to $0.00, we will still have committed ourselves to more than $1.1 trillion of debt in one year under Obama, which amounts to 22% of the total added deficit after eight years of Bush. At this pace, Barack Obama’s debt accumulation will far surpass that of George W. Bush and our country’s economic standing in the world will continue on its steep decline. Perhaps the cost of a possible “quick fix” to the economy is not worth the seemingly endless decline of our long-term economic standing in the world. Putting a Band-Aid on a broken kneecap is not stimulating the recovery of the knee; it is only encouraging a continued decline of its state.
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