Political Hit Piece via Yahoo News: Obama stimulus plan not sure bet to heal economy

[Suji to Seoul]

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama and his congressional allies are gambling that the largest public spending program since World War II and a new round of tax cuts will pry the economy from the recession's iron grip and avert another Depression.

But what if they're wrong?

Some conservative economists say that additional stimulus may only prolong the grief at best, triggering runaway inflation down the road and resulting in an even more bloated federal bureaucracy.

"I think the economy will recover regardless of what Washington does. But the long-term effect here will be to reduce the standard of living of the next generation because they will be saddled with all this debt," said Chris Edwards of the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.

Even without the new spending proposed by Obama, the U.S. has a $1.2 trillion budget deficit this year, he noted. "If that isn't already enough of a Keynesian stimulus, what is?"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090118/ap_on_go_pr_wh/stimulus_risks

This media fell all over itself to suck the Bush ass and tell us his three stimulus packages were going to save us. Now, this hit piece, with sources from Cato,Republican House bunko-artists, a hard right think-tank and A Bush Admin economist, comes out. Mark my world!!! Barack will have a ten second honeymoon with the Republicans and their corporate media PR department.

[KharmaTrain]

1. Sad Truth Is They're Right...

It's not saying this stimulus won't help, but it's not the do-all, end-all...but not for the reasons these asshats are thinking.

The economy is in such shit shape that it'd probably be cheaper just to zero out the balance sheet and start from scratch. Truth is no one knows how this is gonna play out or what it'll take to turn things around. The only thing that is certain, is it's gonna take a lot of time and require a lot of moves.

Let's see the job creation programs...the reforms to the healthcare system, education and other areas that will create new jobs, industries and hopefully restore the economy...but this won't happen overnight and it won't be a smooth and easy thing. The big question is how patient the corporate media will be.

In the end, who cares what the corporate media says...they were rejected last November along with the repugnicans.

[4dsc]

2. They are probably right...

We are headed for a depression the likes we have never witnessed. This depression will make the 29 depression look like a cake walk.. Why?? There's not a sector in the economy that's going to lead us out of this giant hole we are falling into.. When more and morepundits talk about 2010 being the start of any economic recovery, you have to know its going to get worse and stay bad for a long, long, time..

[EmilyAnne]

3. Duh. Nothing is a sure bet when it comes to economics.

[ThomWV]

4. Do you see where the premise of Mr. Edwards argument fails?

"I think the economy will recover regardless of what Washington does. But the long-term effect here will be to reduce the standard of living of the next generation because they will be saddled with all this debt," said Chris Edwards of the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.

What Mr. Edwards sees is a future where the economy would self-right but we the people would be unnecessarily saddled with the bailout-caused debt and attendant payments in taxes to service that debt. Mr. Edward's presumption seems to be that the self-righting of the economy that he expects no matter if action is take or not has, in his opinion, no cost. Economic recovery will come, he seems to reason, because time has passed. Let us correct him. To be sure there will be a cost to pay for the excesses of the last 8 years - the question is who will pay it? Will it be those who profited during the period or will it be those who paid during the period?

[Kip Humphrey]

5. The Fed's actions to date are far more likely to stimulate runaway inflation than anything

the Congress will do.

[mmonk]

6. TV is pushing that this morning as well.

[DemBones DemBones]

7. Public spending is good, tax cuts not good. I hope

Obama will get us out of NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO, and impose tariffs. I was just reading some good articles by Thom Hartmann about the economic problems. He suggests that if American corporations are, for example, paying $2 an hour to Indians who answer the phone for them, the company having to pay a $10 per hour tariff per employee would encourage them to relocate those jobs to the U.S. He also points out one good example Bush set (though of course he set it against treaties that should have been kept, Backasswards Bush that he is.)

"By walking away from the ABM and Kyoto accords, George W. Bush taught Americans that we really do have the power to simply ignore or disavow international treaties we've already committed to. It's time to apply that experience to GATT/WTO/NAFTA and return to our Founders' ideal of a nation where the rules of trade and business are, as Jefferson said, "very much guided" by the interests of We the People, rather than a handful of multinational corporations."

http://skeptically.org/wto/id19.html