Economic Stimulus? $825 Billion Democrat Wish List

What does it take to stimulate a Democrat?

An $825 billion package.

What some call a crisis, Rahm Emanuel calls an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before.

But as Declan McCullagh writes, "If cars and condoms qualify as emergency 'stimulus' spending, what doesn't?"

From the Wall Street Journal:

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."

So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The 647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being sold as an economic "stimulus," but now that Democrats have finally released the details we understand Rahm's point much better. This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.

We've looked it over, and even we can't quite believe it. There's $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There's even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make "dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy." Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There's another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren't likely to help the economy immediately. As Peter Orszag, the President's new budget director, told Congress a year ago, "even those [public works] that are 'on the shelf' generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy."

...The larger fiscal issue here is whether this spending bonanza will become part of the annual "budget baseline" that Congress uses as the new floor when calculating how much to increase spending the following year, and into the future. Democrats insist that it will not. But it's hard -- no, impossible -- to believe that Congress will cut spending next year on any of these programs from their new, higher levels. The likelihood is that this allegedly emergency spending will become a permanent addition to federal outlays -- increasing pressure for tax increases in the bargain. Any Blue Dog Democrat who votes for this ought to turn in his "deficit hawk" credentials.

This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living -- or dead -- Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, "We won the election. We wrote the bill." So they did. Republicans should let them take all of the credit.

From the Associated Press:

President Barack Obama's expansive and expensive plan to revive the economy is all but certain to clear its first hurdle when the House of Representatives votes Wednesday on an $825 billion stimulus package that melds increased government spending and tax cuts.

Despite Obama's desire for bipartisan support, the vote is expected to be largely along party lines.

With Democrats enjoying a comfortable majority and expected to fall in line behind Obama, they do not need help from Republican lawmakers to win House passage of his top priority of economic recovery. But Obama wants Republican support to illustrate his promise of a new style of politics that rejects partisan gridlock.

..."I don't expect 100 percent agreement from my Republican colleagues, but I do hope that we can all put politics aside and do the American people's business right now," Obama said.

This stimulus bill doesn't represent a new style of politics at all.

It's not the American people's business. It's a massive Democrat wish list.

[B]y our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren't likely to help the economy immediately.

The growth stimulus needed right now is for Republicans to grow a spine!

Only 12 cents of every $1 of the $825 billion is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus!

Reject this bloated anti-economic stimulus pile of rotting pork.
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MUST READ: For Many Economists, Stimulus Falls Flat,

An unusual aspect of the recent debate in Washington is the lengths that supporters have gone to marginalize anyone who questions the so-called stimulus plan.

Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's labor secretary and member of President Obama's transition team, claims "almost every economist will tell you the stimulus has to be massive." Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman accuses skeptics of "making totally non-serious arguments."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, says "economists agree" that doling out large sums to state governments is "effective." Vice President Joe Biden says that "every economist that I've spoken to" believes the spending package "has to be big."

Perhaps the vice president should broaden his social circles. The truth is that, instead of being uniformly in favor of the massive spending bill, which is being championed by congressional Democrats with Obama's support, economists remain divided.

You may have heard that respectable economists, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, say stimulus spending should be high or higher. But some news organizations have been less than diligent in telling you that other respectable economists are deeply skeptical of the idea, flatly oppose it or favor competing proposals such as additional tax relief.

The University of Chicago's Gary Becker, another Nobel laureate, warns that "the true value of these government programs may be limited because they will be put together hastily, and are likely to contain a lot of political pork and other inefficiencies." Becker says that in that case, spending could do more harm than good.

Naturally, the process of porkification already is underway. An analysis by taxpayer group Americans for Limited Government shows the $825 billion bill includes $200 million for beautification of the National Mall and millions for new cars for federal bureaucrats. Then there's the flap over contraceptive-related spending. If cars and condoms qualify as emergency "stimulus" spending, what doesn't?

Some of Becker's colleagues are more emphatic. John Cochrane, a finance professor at the University of Chicago's business school, published a detailed paper this week on the topic. He sketches an argument for lower taxes right now - instead of higher spending - while simultaneously whittling down the budget deficit.

...Don Boudreaux, the chairman of the economics department at George Mason University and contributor to CafeHayek.com, adds: "I think one of the fears is that the perception of the size of the downturn is so intense that even among professional economists, a lot of prudent, careful thought has gone out of the window: 'Geez, we have to do something...' The problem is not some kind of sudden lack of consumer confidence. The problem is that the bubble burst."

Boudreaux and the other economists who are skeptical of stimulus spending may, as I tend to believe, be right. They may be wrong. But the arguments are not as one-sided, and the truth is more complicated, than stimulus proponents would have you believe.

Obama is playing the politics of fear.

Careful thought is out the window.