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...wrote last month, there are three questions we should ask about every provision in the package: Will it stimulate the economy quickly? Will it create long-term fiscal obligations? But also: Is it something we ought to do anyway? We need to zap the economy with a big jolt of federal dollars, and it's important that those dollars be spent in timely and temporary ways. But it's just as important that they're spent in ways that promote, and don't undermine, national priorities. Fast is good, but this downturn is likely to last awhile no matter what...
...company's current profitability. Granted, some spending proposals would work faster and better than others. But it's telling that House minority leader John Boehner keeps ridiculing programs to weatherize low-income homes - which would create jobs in a hurry, save poor people money in the long term and reduce energy waste that increases carbon emissions and empowers foreign thugs. It's a worthy program, and if anyone doesn't think so, now is the perfect time to have that debate. What's the argument in favor of heating and air-conditioning the outdoors...
Most of the recent spending debate has focused on waste - money for new weather satellites, antismoking programs and the like. But the austerity scolds haven't found many outrages; antismoking programs, for example, are a terrific way to hold down the long-term health costs that threaten the Treasury's long-term solvency. There ought to be even more money for mass transit, which reduces energy use, increases the competitiveness of metropolitan areas and helps working families, as well as freight rail, which has even greater environmental and economic advantages. Expanded unemployment benefits and food stamps would be excellent stimulus...
...real question, then, is not whether Obama should push to use the stimulus to promote his long-term priorities, but whether he will. He has said repeatedly that he wants to invest our children's money wisely, but he's also anxious to blast money into the economy quickly while attracting bipartisan support and letting Congress work its will, so it's not clear how hard he'll push to fund his long-term agenda. But Obama should ignore the partisan gripes about the stimulus becoming a "Christmas tree." Congress is about to toss almost $1 trillion into the economy...
...series of expectations that came with what we ran on and how we were elected," Gibbs explained Sunday, when asked about the criticism. "I think people will be able to look, though, in three months and see quite obviously that change has come to Washington." In the short term, however, the trees loom front and center, as the White House tries to get people like Daschle confirmed by the U.S. Senate so he can help change a lobbying culture he has long called...