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Big-Government Stimulus Plan

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By ADAM H. PUTNAM

Special to the Tribune

Published: February 11, 2009

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed an economic stimulus bill that would cost the American taxpayer $819 billion - enough to give every man, woman, and child almost $2,700. This would be the most expensive spending bill in history, costing more than the equivalent cost of the New Deal, the Marshall Plan and the Louisiana Purchase combined.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the interest alone for the current stimulus plan would be $347 billion over 10 years, pushing the total cost of the bill as high as $1.172 trillion.

There is broad consensus among economists and politicians of both political parties that a stimulus package is essential. Unfortunately, the proposal considered by Congress mixes a few good ideas with a number of really bad ones and provides scant assurance that hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent efficiently and with effective oversight.

Confronted with an ongoing economic crisis, Congress and the administration must work together in a bipartisan way to find solutions that help American families and put the American economy back on track, without spending billions of American taxpayer dollars on congressional pet projects with little or no oversight and with absolutely no chance of stimulating the economy.

President Obama has reached out to both Republicans and Democrats in an effort to put together a bipartisan stimulus bill. In these challenging times, I can support the president's calls to include investments in America's aging infrastructure and in energy efficiency and increased renewable energy as part of the economic stimulus, as long as it is paired with meaningful tax relief. While finding the right balance is a challenge - especially when the situation is so dire - we can certainly achieve these goals through bipartisan cooperation.

This, unfortunately, is not the case at the moment. Congressional Democrats have hijacked the Obama administration's proposal and larded it up with a hodgepodge of items from the congressional wish list. There's $600 million for the federal government to buy new cars, $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $3 billion for a new "Prevention and Wellness" fund and $600 million to prepare our country for universal health care. There's also $4.2 billion for neighborhood stabilization activities that could go to groups like ACORN. The proposal even includes $335 million for prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

Regardless of the merits of these proposals, they have little to do with economic stimulus and will only dig the United States deeper into debt under the guise of "economic recovery."

We need a stimulus that is timely, targeted and temporary. It also must include rigorous oversight to ensure that this enormous sum of money is not wasted through mismanagement or corruption. The current economic crisis should not serve as an excuse for Washington politicians to spend taxpayer dollars with reckless abandon.

America deserves a well-thought-out stimulus plan that is focused on kick-starting the economy and easing the immediate burden on families and workers. This can be accomplished quickly through targeted tax relief for families, workers, small businesses and companies. We must also provide assistance to those who have lost their jobs as they try to find new work.

I urge my Democratic colleagues to work with Republicans to trim the fat and focus spending on legitimate economic needs.

Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow, represents the 12th Congressional District.

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