My Team Wants A Stimulus Package

Ezra Klein says the following:

"It's cruel irony that turmoil caused by elites gaming the financial markets has managed to rip attention from the struggles of the broader economy."

Actually, a number of people have commented on the need for a stimulus package for the economy:

Lawrence Summers:

"Indeed, in the current circumstances the case for fiscal stimulus -- policy actions that increase short-term deficits -- is stronger than ever before in my professional lifetime. Unemployment is almost certain to increase -- probably to the highest levels in a generation. Monetary policy has little scope to stimulate the economy given how low interest rates already are and the problems in the financial system. Global experience with economic downturns caused by financial distress suggests that while they are of uncertain depth, they are almost always of long duration.

The economic point here can be made straightforwardly: The more people who are unemployed, the more desirable it is that government takes steps to put them back to work by investing in infrastructure or energy or simply by providing tax cuts that allow families to avoid cutting back on their spending."

Robert Reich:

"Wall Street and its creditors are not at the core of the American economy. Main Street and consumers are at the core. So even if the bailout bill keeps Wall Street going and prevents the sort of massive defaults that would freeze global credit markets, it does virtually nothing to help the vast majority of American consumers who are already at the end of their ropes -- who right now need extended unemployment insurance, affordable health coverage, and assistance in meeting their mortgage payments and fuel bills. And as long as Americans remain at the end of their ropes, the American economy will continue to decline.

So the real choice isn't between a lousy bailout bill or economic Armageddon. It's between taking prompt action to help average Americans or watching the nation fall into a deeper and deeper recession. Wall Street will be bailed out. The bigger question is whether Congress and the next administration do what's needed to rescue the rest of America, and the overall economy."

Paul Krugman:

"We also desperately need an economic stimulus plan to push back against the slump in spending and employment. And this time it had better be a serious plan that doesn’t rely on the magic of tax cuts, but instead spends money where it’s needed. (Aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, which are slashing spending at precisely the worst moment, is also a priority.) Yet it’s hard to imagine the Bush administration, in its final months, overseeing the creation of a new Works Progress Administration."

Robert Kuttner:

"Third, with the real economy now suffering real damage, the Wall Street rescue should be linked to a big stimulus package to pump money into the rest of the economy -- infrastructure spending, help to state and local governments, and extended unemployment benefits."

Sen. Obama:

"As soon as we pass this rescue plan, we need to move with the same sense of urgency to rescue families on Main Street who are struggling to pay their bills and keep their jobs. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we need to pass an economic stimulus plan that will help folks cope with rising food and gas prices, save one million jobs by rebuilding our schools and roads, and help states and cities avoid budget cuts and tax increases. A plan that would extend expiring unemployment benefits for those Americans who’ve lost their jobs and cannot find new ones."

Sen. Obama also said the following:

"We cannot mortgage our children’s future on a mountain of debt. It’s time to put an end to the run-away spending and the record deficits – it’s not how you would run your family budget, and it must not be how Washington handles your tax dollars. It’s time to return to the fiscal responsibility and pay as you go budgeting that we had in the 1990s. Many in Congress have been fighting for these commonsense principles, and I will be a President who supports them and makes sure they succeed. That’s why I’m not going to stand here and simply tell you what I’m going to spend – I’m going to start by telling you how we’re going to save when I am President.

I will go through the entire federal budget, page by page, line by line, and eliminate the programs that don’t work and aren’t needed. We should start by ending a war in Iraq that is costing us $10 billion a month while the Iraqi government sits on a $79 billion surplus. We should stop sending $15 billion a year in overpayments to insurance companies for Medicare, and go after tens of billions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid fraud. We need to stop sending three billion a year to banks that provide student loans the government could provide for less. And we can end the hundreds of millions a year in subsidies to agribusiness that can survive just fine without your tax dollars, and use some of the money to help struggling family farmers. That’s what I’ll do as President.

And we can’t stop there. We lose $100 billion every year because corporations set up mailboxes offshore so they can avoid paying a dime of taxes in America. In the Senate, I worked across the aisle to crack down on these schemes. And as President, I will shut down those offshore tax havens and all those corporate loopholes once and for all. You shouldn’t have to pay higher taxes because some big corporation cut corners to avoid paying theirs. All of us have a responsibility to pay our fair share. That’s accountability. And that’s what we’ll have when I’m President.

As for the programs we do need, I will make them work better and cost less. I will create a High-Performance Team of experts that evaluates every agency and every office based on how well they’re serving the American taxpayer. I will save billions of dollars by cutting private contractors and improving management and oversight of the hundreds of billions of dollars our government spends on contracts. And I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all – the days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton will be over when I’m in the White House."

So, it's pretty clear that my team wants a stimulus package. From a libertarian Democrat point of view, we want to examine the effectiveness of the stimulus, and the budget ramifications of the stimulus.

Finally, I believe that one reason a stimulus package is not receiving much coverage right now is because it will have to wait for the next administration.