Sen. Arlen Specter is the King of on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand bullshitting, but his decision to endorse the stimulus package in today’s Washington Post is duly noted and appreciated. As a justification, it’s better than I’ve come to expect from Arlen, although his perception of what is ‘necessary’ is patently self-serving. Be that as it may, Specter makes a couple of points worth remembering. First, he points out that we’re experiencing a global crisis of confidence and we must pass a stimulus bill (regardless of what is in it) and second, he quotes John F. Kennedy:
“In politics,” John Kennedy used to say, “nobody gets everything, nobody gets nothing and everybody gets something.” My colleagues and I have tried to balance the concerns of both left and right with the need to act quickly for the sake of our country. The moderates’ compromise, which faces a cloture vote today, is the only bill with a reasonable chance of passage in the Senate.
However, Arlen neglects the elephant in the room, which is the concern that the stimulus package is too small. Mind you, the experts are not arguing that the stimulus package is too small by the relatively small amount represented in the Senate cuts that Arlen describes, but by hundreds of billions of dollars.
With the United States government close to roughly $12 trillion in debt and contemplating tacking on another $800 or so billion, the two bodies will wrestle all week over some $40 billion. By congressional standards, that’s the change in the couch cushions.
Remember that when you hear people huff and puff about the size of the moderates’ bill. The moderates’ bill is roughly the same size as the House bill, and the difference is the equivalent of couch change. However, the stimulus package isn’t the end of spending.
Still looming out there (and relevant to the stimulus bill with the still-enormous price tag) is another omnibus appropriations bill to continue government funding when last year’s continuing resolution expires on March 6th. Oh, and possibly another trillion dollars for yet another TARP round.
I wish I was kidding about that.
David Waldman reminds us that we never passed most of last year’s appropriations (and so have been operating the government at 2007 levels all during this fiscal year) and that we have more TARP money coming (to be announced by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tommorrow). How many ‘economic experts’ have been honestly accounting for the next two huge spending bills when they estimate total stimulus? Answer: not one that I have seen.
You can safely add another trillion and a half in spending to whatever comes out of the final stimulus package. Many of my fellow liberals are quick to argue that all spending is stimulus when it serves their purpose, but quickly drop that rhetoric if any of the money goes to shore up the financial sector. And how many have you seen mention that government spending will go up across the board once last year’s appropriations are passed?
Unfortunately, the size of our economic hole is so large that it is still reasonable to wonder if all this spending will be adequate to the task. But, again, don’t get in a lather over couch change.
