The Stimulus Bill in Perspective

[babylonsister]

http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2009/02/stimulus-bill-in-perspective.html

The Stimulus Bill in Perspective
The Anonymous Liberal


Republicans are making a big deal about the cost of the stimulus bill just passed by Congress. While $800 billion is certainly a hefty price tag, some perspective is in order here.


In 2001, President Bush's first legislative "accomplishment" was pissing away our then existing budget surplus with a $1.35 trillion tax cut bill. And the $1.35 trillion number was itself incredibly deceptive. It was achieved through the unprecedented use of sunsetting provisions designed to dramatically reduce the apparent long term costs of the legislation. The people who wrote the bill fully expected that the cuts would eventually be made permanent, that it would be politically infeasible to allow them to lapse. They just figured they could sell larger tax cuts if they pretended that they would all expire in 2010.

The 2001 tax cuts were followed by additional tax cuts in 2002 and 2003. These cuts have already cost the federal government significantly more than the entire cost of the stimulus package, and when all is said and done, their cost will dwarf that of the stimulus package.

And the most tragic part about it is that we have virtually nothing to show for all that spending. No bridges. No infrastructure. No college degrees. No reduction in the national debt. Nothing.

snip//

The Obama stimulus bill is expensive, but at least we know two important things about it: 1) its price tag has not been artificially lowered through the use of deceptive accounting and legislative gimmicks; it costs what it costs, and 2) when all is said and done, we will at least be able to point to real, tangible things that the money paid for. That's much more than can be said of the Bush tax cuts.

I've been convinced for a long time now that historians will look back on the early part of the Bush administration as the biggest missed opportunity in modern American history. An unexpected economic boom in the 1990s put us in a position to finally put our national fiscal house in order. We could have paid back much of our debt and taken steps to shore up our future liabilities. But instead of we took a bunch of money and lit it on fire, and now we are in worse fiscal shape that we have ever been in as a nation, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you, President Bush.

[leftstreet]

1. The author inadvertently makes a strong case for taxing the rich

Probably wasn't the intention.