Sunday, February 8, 2009
A REAL ECONOMIC RECOVERY PACKAGE DOESN'T ROB US BLIND
| As the senate discusses how to construct a package that will get enough support from congress to become law, the Republican National Committee's newly elected Chairman, Mike Steele, took to the airwaves to discuss options. Taking Republicans back to their economic roots, Steele reminds us that the fastest way to stimulate the economy is to empower the people and take less money away from the people in the first place. Although Republicans should not object to a package geared at stimulating the economy, they are right to object to a bill that is designed to spend money simply for the sake of spending and that is exactly what the bill in question has become, a free for all, spending bill. Republicans are right to deny support for a bill that is directed at filling the pockets of special interests while emptying the pockets of taxpayers. One example of the questionable spending in this so-called stimulus package, raised by Chairman Steele, is an amount of $45 million dollars for the creation of trails for all terrain vehicles. It is just one of many spending inclusions that help to bring this bill, intended for economic recovery, to its staggering final total. Although wasteful spending is not what ushered in the credit crunch that led to the financial crisis we are in, it does not help matters. Wasteful spending only exacerbates matters. It leads to more taxes which in turn leads to less spending and less spending does not help to stimulate the economy. Less spending and less economic growth does not increase employment and none of it boosts our economy. All of this indicates that an economic stimulus package packed with wasteful spending is not an answer to our problems. Such a package can only make matters worse and prolong the economic downturn we are experiencing. That is not to say that the government cannot help. It can. Our government needs to create a package that is aimed at one goal and one goal only. Stimulate the economy. Currently, under the guise of recovery, legislators are throwing in spending suggestions that are designed more at gaining favor from special interest groups in their home districts than at assisting the American people at large. Instead of helping to secure our national economic future, many of them are trying to secure a substantial financial donation from special interest groups for their reelection. That is why much of the spending in this bill does little if anything to "stimulate" the economy at anytime within the immediate future. A more rational approach to a stimulus package could result in a far less expensive spending bill. A more rational approach to the stimulus package would contain more and larger, immediate, short term tax cuts that allow people to keep and spend more of their own money, while the government enters into some cost saving measures of its own. In fact the first line of a stimulus package that intends to to spend money should start off with a repeal of the 2.8 percent, automatic pay raise that congress has accepted. Without a repeal of that measure, the House of Representatives and the Senate can not be taken seriously. Without their willingness to accept the fact that we are living through tough economic times and that they too must share in a collective national sacrifice, they can not be counted on or trusted to take up solutions to our problems seriously. Many of the spending measures in the current package have no right to be considered in an omnibus bill like this one. Many of the proposed spending measures in this bill should stand alone and be voted on separately and in their own right. What should be included in an omnibus stimulus package are those measures which will: 1. -reduce the cost to operate government 2. -free up legitimate and rational credit in the free market place 3. -enhance public infrastructure, transportation and energy needs. The purpose of the third aspect to any serious stimulus package directly helps the economy in both the short and the long term and spending in each of the three categories mentioned, infrastructure, transportation and energy, will directly relate to increased employment in the United States. Barring cost saving measures, freeing up credit and limiting spending to public energy, transportation and infrastructure initiatives, the economic stimulus package need not include extras for hobbyists, lobbyists and other special interests. Under the liberal leadership of the liberal controlled federal government, we are witnessing the construction of a bill that takes advantage of the economic crisis rather than ease the economic crisis. Since 2004 Republicans have slowly but surely lost their roots of fiscal responsibility and conservatism. Since 2006 voters have been cleaning house and ridding us of those Republicans who have gone astray and now in, 2009, remaining Republican lawmakers are faced with a defining moment. Will they rollover and participate in a reckless, historic bill that takes advantage of our problems or will they stand firm and put forth an alternative solution that harkens back to our original principles and beliefs that demonstrate that government is not the solution but rather the problem? Either way, the first step starts with a bill that repeals the pay raise that they have so willingly accepted. |
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