OOPS!

From a syndicated news column by Donald Lambro as printed in the Martinsville (VA) Bulletin – Friday, June 12th.

“STIMULUS NOT HELPING”

Nearly five months into Barack Obama’s presidency, his stimulus program is failing to produce the jobs he promised. And voters are souring on his big-spending, deficit-driven policies.

A nationwide Rasmussen poll found that nearly half of Americans (45 %) want the administration to stop spending the remaining bulk of the $787 billion economic-stimulus fund – doubting that the money will create any new jobs. Just 36% want the spending to continue while 20% say they’re not sure.

With the unemployment rate spiraling up to 9.4% in May and this year’s budget deficit speeding well past 1.8 trillion, Americans are turning against Obama’s handling of the economy and the unprecedented rise in government spending.

Last week, the Gallup Poll said that, while 55% of their sampling approved of the way he (Obama)* was handling the economy, 42% disapproved – up sharply from 30% in February.

Americans are growing even more disgusted with the way Obama is dealing with the budget deficit – with 46% approving and48% disapproving. His numbers are worse on the issue of “controlling federal spending” – 45% approve but for the first time, a 51% majority disapproves.

These polling numbers were reinforced by a number of economists on the left and the right who say his infrastructure stimulus has been an abject failure from the beginning.

“Despite administration claims, the stimulus package has created or saved few jobs,” said University of Maryland economist Peter Morici. “The stimulus package was poorly conceived. Not enough is devoted to hard projects, and little of the spending will stimulate late permanent growth,” Morici said last week in his latest economic analysis.
The same view can be found at the conservative Hoover Institute on the Stanford University campus.

“The end of the recession is still months away but it is increasingly clear the stimulus package was a mistake. To date, it has had no identifiable beneficial impact on the economy,” Stanford economist John Cogan told me.

“More importantly*, its impact later this year and next will be decidedly negative because the funds required to finance the package’s spending will be drawn from private-sector resources that are needed to fuel the recovery. At this juncture, Congress would be wise to repeal the remainder of the program,” Cogan said.

That idea may be gaining support among Republicans on Capitol Hill whose “stop the spending” plea is resonating with millions of Americans angered by the Obama Democrats’ spending spree on make-work, “pork-barrel” projects that will enlarge the federal deficit but employ few workers. (Not all the projects are “make-work” and “pork-barrel” but I’d certainly say that a large percentage of those projects are EXACTLY THAT!)*

The economy is clearly showing signs of life that is expected to bear more growth in the third and fourth quarters* – even though only $44 billion of the stimulus money has been spent so far. That begs the question: Why spend 70% of the money next year when the recovery will be fully under way?

“If there is any way we can ‘claw’ some of it back, it makes a whole lot of sense to reduce our debt than spending it as quickly as we can,” said Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

The chances of that idea being adopted in this Democratic Congress are slim to none because much - if not the majority* - of the money isn’t for any short-term stimulus – although it was originally sold as that. It is part and parcel of the Democrats’ agenda to expand hundreds of federal grant programs for their favored special-interest constituencies.

We are fast approaching the point where it will be time to “pull the plug” on what has turned out to be a “non-stimulus” spending program that has done more harm than good.

My comments - I think you heard it here first – the stimulus package was doomed from the start. All this money would have been better spent helping the long-term unemployed.

- Distributed by the Newspaper Enterprise Association
*(All italics are mine.)