Worrying about the "stimulus" package

The NY Times' David Brooks gives sound conservative reasons for concern over Obama and his "stimulus" bill:

"Readers of this column know that I am a great admirer of Barack Obama and those around him. And yet the gap between my epistemological modesty and their liberal worldviews has been evident over the past few weeks. The people in the administration are surrounded by a galaxy of unknowns, and yet they see this economic crisis as an opportunity to expand their reach, to take bigger risks and, as Obama said on Saturday, to tackle every major problem at once. President Obama has concentrated enormous power on a few aides in the West Wing of the White House. These aides are unrolling a rapid string of plans: to create three million jobs, to redesign the health care system, to save the auto industry, to revive the housing industry, to reinvent the energy sector, to revitalize the banks, to reform the schools — and to do it all while cutting the deficit in half. If ever this kind of domestic revolution were possible, this is the time and these are the people to do it. The crisis demands a large response. The people around Obama are smart and sober. Their plans are bold but seem supple and chastened by a realistic sensibility. Yet they set off my Burkean alarm bells. I fear that in trying to do everything at once, they will do nothing well. I fear that we have a group of people who haven’t even learned to use their new phone system trying to redesign half the U.S. economy. I fear they are going to try to undertake the biggest administrative challenge in American history while refusing to hire the people who can help the most: agency veterans who are registered lobbyists. I worry that we’re operating far beyond our economic knowledge."

And this from someone who is, as he wrote, fairly positive concerning Obama.
Are moderate GOP governors like Charlie Crist listening?

Republicans prepare to pounce...

...on wasteful spending in the "stimulus" package:

"House Republicans are setting up "a stimulus-watch program" that will allow watchdog groups and private citizens to report findings as contractors and agencies start spending billions of dollars on roads, schools, renewable energy projects and other initiatives, said House GOP Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia. "We'll be taking a look in detail" and "really providing accountability and transparency," Cantor said in an interview Wednesday. House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said in a statement: "House Republicans are concerned about the potential for abuse of taxpayer funds in the massive trillion-dollar spending bill that the president signed into law this week. ... We will remain vigilant in our oversight efforts."

Good for them. But they've got work to do to convince Americans that they really mean it, after the past 8 years. They're going to have to prove their bona fides here, in their votes...and in being willing to criticize their own who accept pork for their own states and districts. They can start with the 4 Republican governors who welcomed the "stimulus" money...such as Florida Governor Charlie Crist.

UPDATE: by the way, there are some Republican governors willing to say no:
"My concern is there's going to be commitments attached to it that are a mile long," said Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who considered rejecting some of the money but decided Wednesday to accept it. "We need the freedom to pick and choose. And we need the freedom to say 'No thanks.'"

Good for him.

Some stimulus "victory" for Obama

Rich Lowry today explains how tainted this "win" truly was:

"At the outset of the stimulus debate, Obama said his package would set a “new higher standard of accountability, transparency and oversight.” He wanted a bill free of earmarked spending for parochial projects, and talked of incorporating good Republican ideas. His team floated the goal of winning some 20 Republican votes in the Senate for legislation that — if Obama’s campaign pledges were met — would have been posted for comment on the White House Web site for five days prior to passage. As if deliberately setting out to make Obama look naïve, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid secured, at the last minute, $8 billion for high-speed rail, with an eye to building a magnetic-levitation line that he supports between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Representatives from Wisconsin and Indiana got a tax break benefiting motorcycle and RV manufacturers in their states. On it went. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer’s defense was to say, sure the bill had “porky amendments,” but no one really cares about such picayune matters.
The House wrote the bill with no Republican input, and when the House and Senate met in a conference committee to hammer out differences in the bills that had passed the different chambers, Republicans were shut out except for those lone three Republican senators who (out of 219 total Republicans in Congress) supported the legislation. Obama himself attacked Republicans for wanting to pass nothing, a blatant straw man."

And the bill was rushed towards passage, with little time to review it, for anyone--some "openness." And one of the most significant things I noticed was this: Democrats with whom I'm acquainted were forced into the ridiculous argument that any government spending on pretty much anything equaled "stimulus." That was just silly. Now we need to keep reminding the public of all these goals which the Obama administration did not meet.

Just say no to the centrists

Jonah Goldberg makes a good point recently, denouncing the "centrists" who have been nibbling away at the "stimulus" bill:

"Led by Republican Arlen Specter, the centrists have boldly cut (perhaps temporarily) $100 billion or so from the stimulus package, in the name of fiscal discipline. But, as liberal critics such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman rightly point out, they’re cutting it to prove their “centrist mojo,” not because they have real concern for public policy. If the bill had started out at $1 trillion, then $900 billion in porcine outlays would be deemed the “responsible” amount to spend.For certain Beltway centrists, the highest principle is to prove that you are attached to no principle. Rather, your duty is to split the difference between the “ideologues.” If one side says we need a 1,000-foot bridge to span a canyon, and the other side says we don’t need a bridge at all, the centrists will fight for a bridge that goes 500 feet and no farther, then pat themselves on the back."

Exactly. Endlessly splitting differences for the sake of "doing something" is not principled, nor is it good policy. Remember Vietnam? Lyndon Johnson tried forever to argue that he was the centrist--that some wanted to go to Vietnam and "blow up everything", and others wanted to just leave and forget the whole thing. But he was the centrist, splitting the difference, dribbling American men into Vietnam but limiting our tactics and firepower. It was a policy that failed. So very well may this "stimulus" bill, which seems more and more not to be a product of policy and clearly-defined goals, but instead of desperate accommodation.

Yes, irresponsible indeed

President Obama says bad economic numbers mean the "stimulus" package must be passed, and passed now:

"President Barack Obama decried as "inexcusable and irresponsible" the delay of his economic recovery legislation in Congress with an estimated 3.6 million Americans losing their jobs since the recession began....The president named an outside economic team of advisers as the nation dealt with more bad news in the unemployment report for January. Employers slashed payrolls by 598,000, the most since the end of 1974, propelling the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent. The rate is the highest since September 1992. "These numbers demand action. It is inexcusable and irresponsible for any of us to get bogged down in distraction, delay or politics as usual while millions of Americans are being put out of work," Obama said bluntly. "Now is the time for Congress to act."

Well, of course, many folks agree that there needs to be action. But the problem is that those same folks think the bill, as constituted, is a bad bill. Obama agrees it has problems; yet his position seems to be that the problems are so stark that we have to pass even questionable legislation immediately, so that we can say we "did something."

"Don't just stand there, do something" however is not a great way to go about thinking and doing, is not a recipe for success, and most people know it. Conservatives should keep making that point.

UPDATE: furthermore, Rich Lowry today at NRO makes a very good point as to why Obama's arguments right now are failing concerning this legislation:

"As far as political arguments go, “I won” has its power—provided it’s made on behalf of an agenda ratified by the American electorate. But Obama didn’t campaign on a sprawling, nearly $1 trillion new spending plan. If he had pledged in October to double federal domestic discretionary spending in a matter of weeks—including increasing the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by a third, spending hundreds of millions more on federal buildings and throwing tens of billions on every traditional liberal priority from job training to Pell Grants—he’d have been hard-pressed to win at all. The president should read the transcript of the third presidential debate. He claimed his program represented “a net spending cut.” He called himself “a strong proponent of pay-as-you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.” He added, “We need to eliminate a whole host of programs that don’t work.”

Republicans should pound away on this point, as well.

Interesting inside-the-beltway back and forth today...

President Obama began it by writing a Washington Post op-ed urging passage of the "stimulus" package:
"President Barack Obama warned on Thursday that failure to act on an economic recovery package could plunge the nation into a long-lasting recession that might prove irreversible, a fresh call to a recalcitrant Congress to move quickly. In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, the president argued that each day without his stimulus package, Americans lose more jobs, savings and homes."

But Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had an interesting retort:
"This process stinks," Graham told FOX News, before repeating a lot of his criticisms on the Senate floor. "We're making this up as we go and it is a waste of money. It is a broken process, and the president, as far as I'm concerned, has been AWOL on providing leadership on something as important as this." Republican senators and congressmen have been reluctant to direct any criticism at the president since his inauguration. They mostly have fired shots at Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, saying they have obstructed the bipartisan process Obama sought. But Graham broke that practice after Obama granted a round of interviews defending his plan Tuesday and wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post Thursday in which he warned of disastrous consequences if Congress does not pass the stimulus bill. "Scaring people is not leadership. Writing an editorial that if you don't pass this bad bill we're going to have disaster -- we've had enough presidents trying to scare people to make bad decisions," Graham said. "I like President Obama, but he is not leading. Having lunch is not leading ... and doing TV interviews is not leading."

Interesting. And Obama did say, over and over again both during the election campaign and after it, that he wanted all kinds of face-to-face negotiations and deal-making going on between he and Republicans, that "bipartisanship" would be the word. Now he seems to be trying to go over the heads of congress. Graham is calling him on it. We'll see what happens...

UPDATE: note too that even liberal and pro-Obama columnist E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post admits:

"Obama's network appearances were planned as a response to a wholly unanticipated development: Republicans -- short on new ideas, low on votes, and deeply unpopular in the polls -- have been winning the media wars over the president's central initiative."

Keep up the fight!

AND...UPDATE #2: National Review now is out with probably the most comprehensive, up-to-date dissection of all the pork in the "stimulus" bill, as it finds no less than 50 outrages in it. My favorite: $87 million for a polar icebreaking ship.

The "stimulus" package (contd)

The evidence that it is full of pork continues to build--today MSNBC.com headlines a piece suggesting that it contains a "taste" of pork, and asking how we define "earmarks"; and the answer is:

"In part, the answer hinges on the definition of an “earmark.” Democrats insist they are nowhere in the plan; Republicans see “pork” everywhere. So we cribbed from criteria Congress laid out in a 2007 reform bill: language that aims spending at specific programs, states or localities, often at a member’s request. Specific location? The Senate stimulus contains $50 million for habitat restoration and other water needs in the San Francisco Bay Area. There is another $62 million for military projects in Guam. Specific industry? The House bill includes an amendment authored by Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley setting aside $500 million for biofuel makers, which he says, would bring jobs home to Iowa. Specific program? There’s $198 million to compensate Filipino World War II veterans for their service. Most don’t live in the United States."

Read the whole thing.

"Stimulus" plan update...

Its cost just keeps rising:

"The cost of President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan now exceeds $900 billion after the Senate added money for medical research and tax breaks for car purchases."

But note that the criticisms of the plan are obviously having an effect on public opinion--approval of the plan must be slipping. How do we know? President Obama yesterday said:

"In an interview on CNN, Obama signaled a willingness to drop items that "may not really stimulate the economy right now." He also signaled he'll try to remove "buy American" provisions in the legislation to avoid a possible trade war."

Obama wouldn't have said that if the plan remained popular. Keep up the good work, conservatives...

Whither the "stimulus" package?

Many of my liberal/Democrat acquaintances argue that the public loves every bit of the "stimulus" package as it now stands. But public opinion polling is showing things moving in a bit of a different direction:

"A Gallup poll out Tuesday showed that a majority of Americans want Congress to either reject or make "major changes" to the economic stimulus package on Capitol Hill. The poll, conducted from Friday through Sunday, found that 75 percent of Americans want Congress to pass some version of the plan. But the survey reflected deepening doubts about the effectiveness of the programs and spending items currently being considered by federal lawmakers. Only 38 percent of those polled favored the existing stimulus proposal, down from a slight majority holding that view in the Jan. 28 Gallup survey."

Conservatives and Republicans need to keep pounding away at the boondoggles in this plan.

Obama's "stimulus" plan (to be contd)

Will it's "infrastructure" spending really help the economy? Not really:

"According to the Congressional Budget Office, only $4 billion out of $30 billion in highway spending, $3 billion of $18.5 billion in renewable-energy spending, and less than $7 billion of $14 billion of school-construction spending would be spent in the first two years. If spending will take place in 2011 or later, there’s no reason for it to be jammed into a hastily passed stimulus bill.
Unless, of course, Democrats want to use the crisis atmosphere to bypass the normal budgetary process for long-term spending. Almost $16 billion for Pell Grants for college students and $1.9 billion for basic scientific research won’t stimulate the economy in the near term. Neither will funding for the National Endowment for the Arts ($50 million) or for the National Mall ($200 million)."

We'll continue to poke holes in this bill in the days to come.

UPDATE: and by the way, when simple facts such as these are pointed out, how does the netroots left respond? Like this:

"The anti-stimulus crowd is getting desperate. The possibility that a
young charismatic new president will push through an ambitious package
that begins to set the economy right is truly terrifying to this crew.
After all, if the economy begins to turn around and has largely
recovered in three or four years, the Republican leadership can look
forward to spending most of their careers in the political
wilderness."

Sad.

House Republicans on the Obama stimulus

They urge opposition to it, on solid grounds:

"Hours before a meeting with President Barack Obama, House Republican leaders sought to rally opposition Tuesday to a White House-backed economic stimulus measure with an $825 billion price tag. Several officials said that Reps. John Boehner of Ohio, the GOP leader, and Eric Cantor of Virginia, his second-in-command, delivered the appeal at a closed-door meeting of the Republican rank and file. Both men said the legislation contains too much wasteful spending that will not help the economy recover from its worst nosedive since the Great Depression, the officials added."

That's fine. But let's not kid ourselves--Republicans during the Bush years cooperated too easily and eagerly in runaway government spending. Conservative Republicans are going to have to show that they mean it this time. And that will only come over time, and in rejecting pork-barrel goodies even when they might benefit somebody in YOUR district.