"Liberal" Maureen Dowd agrees with GOP that there's too much pork in stimulus package

[Paulaguyon]

A while ago, Maureen Dowd confessed that she was not interested in covering economic issues:

HARWOOD: You are worried you might lose your edge with Obama?

DOWD: I just much prefer scandals about Neiman Marcus to uh, you know, weighty academics talking about the economy…..

This seems to have changed recently, as Dowd has been attacking Democrats (never Republicans) over both the stimulus and the bailout.

In today's column, she takes issue with the insignificant amount of pork present in the package, (instead of evaluating the merits of the package as a whole) quoting Michael Steele:

It wasn’t only that Americans’ already threadbare trust has been ripped by Hank Paulson’s mumbo-jumbo and the Democrats’ bad judgment in accessorizing the stimulus bill with Grammy-level “bling, bling,” as the R.N.C. chairman, Michael Steele, called it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/opinion/11dowd.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

[Cha]

1. Obama said there was no pork.

What a stupid position.

[Thrill]

2. Shes not a liberal. I don' t know why the pundits call her that

[bunkerbuster1]

3. Is it time for another OFFICIAL EFF YOU MODO thread?

I'm up for that. Can't stand her. Considered her worthless since, oh, 2000.

[Captain Hilts]

7. Like I have, you must have gone back and read hers, Rich's and Herbert's columns from '99-'00.

They gave us GWB.

[Downtown Hound]

4. Maureen Dowd is a female Tweety

Sometimes she has good things to say, other times not so much. But ultimately, like Tweety, what she's really interested in is the power and the stories that come with it. Tweety is obsessed with power and those who wield it. So is Maureen. And she likes to wield hers. That's really what it's all about for her.She's not a journalist. She's a glorified tabloid writer.

[Cha]

12. Sounds like a good

analysis to me..thanks, Downtown.

[MercutioATC]

5. I agree with her. This isn't a "stimulus bill", it's a spending clusterfuck.

There seem to be two major issues between the two sides here.

One stems from some people's belief that ANY government spending is a "stimulus". By that logic, any spending that's in this bill is justified. I disagree.

The other is the definition of the word "pork". Is funding for the arts "pork" in this bill? I believe that it is, as it's a relatively low-bang-for-the-buck "stimulus". Some believe that if it has any value, it can't be "pork".


This is a stimulus bill. It's not a yearly federal budget, it's not an education initiative, it's not social legislation. The primary purpose should be to stimulate the economy in the most efficient manner, not fund a bunch of programs that, while possibly worthwhile, are not primarily stimulus programs.

[DeepBlueC]

9. To an economist a dollar is a dollar

All the spending is stimulus. . Dollars paid to do any kind of work spend just the same and it is the spending that does the job. Getting something worthwhile for the bucks seems like good judgment. In any budget bill Republicans can argue endlessly that the very same things are unaffordable. In a happy synchrony here spending the money to do socially worthwhile things also accomplishes economically valuable purposes, as long as the projects are front-loaded and ready to go. And there is nothing wrong with using dollars for projects that will stimulate the economy now and save money in the longer run i.e. green projects

There have been economic studies showing that dollars invested in the arts in fact show a very good return on investment to the economy.

But I heard an economist talking to I think David Shuster who said that a lot of politicians who are talking about what stimulus is and is not ought to go back to Econ 101. To an economists a dollar injected into the economy has the same value no matter what it is spent on.

[MercutioATC]

10. So the government handing out rubber chickens has the same value as infrastructure spending?

Both will create jobs. Both will stimulate the economy to some degree.

But do they have equal value?


A "stimulus bill", in my opinion, should, as its primary purpose, stimulate the economy in the most efficient way possible. Anything that doesn't do that, regardless of its overall merit, has no part in a stimulus bill...especially one created to deal with an economic crisis.


By your measure, we'd be doing just as much handing out rubber chickens.

[Occam Bandage]

13. Likely not the same value, but value nevertheless.

Certainly a rubber-chicken program would be more valuable than Keynes's famed hole-diggers example.

[MercutioATC]

14. And I'm not disputing that things like money for the arts have SOME stimulative value.

I'm arguing that, like rubber chickens, they have no place in a stimulus bill.

[DeepBlueC]

16. I'm saying economists measure stimulus in dollars

period.

[Lucinda]

15. I agree with you, but we are in the minority here.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

6. I've never understood why people like her snotty high school newspaper airhead

writing style.

[biscotti]

8. MoDo is a ditz

she hates everyone.

[rvablue]

11. It's the only way she can get attention. B/C if she relied on reporting, fact or intellect

she would be irrelevant.

Why the NYT wastes one dollar on her, given their financial situation, I will never understand.

Yes, MoDo, we're going to listen to your sage gossip in order to solve our economic problems. NOT!


ed:typo