Commentary: February 15th by Henry Tieleman (HWTieleman@AOL.COM) in his newsletter "Democracy Prevails".

The rationale for the economic stimulus bill, “the American Recovery and reinvestment Act,” was initially intended for those of the population that lived without much income or had lost their home due to foreclosure. The unemployment rate is now at 7.6% and climbing. In the past year another 2.8 million Americans who want and need full-time work had to settle for low-paying part-time employment. As a result of the wrangling on the content of the bill, funds were cut for the extended health care coverage for the unemployed. Also $30 billion in aid to state governments to prevent reductions in social services to the poor and those out of work was eliminated. In an effort to gain Republican support, significantly more tax cuts were included than originally intended. The package would have a much greater stimulative effect if it increased funding for food stamps and helped states maintain programs and services for their citizens. As Barney Frank testified on ABC TV, it is a testament of right wing messaging that the debate was centered over the cost of the package, while it is perfectly OK to squander at least three times as much on the war and occupation of Iraq. On the other hand it was considered wasteful to build roads, hospitals, schools, and keep people healthy, employed and housed.

The stimulus package was designed to ease the worst economic recession in generations, and combines hundreds of billions of dollars in spending to boost consumption by the public sector, along with tax cuts for the lower middle class to increase consumer spending. Currently, no one is spending, the banks are not lending, and business is not investing. Therefore, the only way to keep the economy stumbling along is by the government doing the spending. The Republican idea to bring the economy back to life is tax cuts, tax cuts, and more tax cuts. This medicine was tried before when the last tax refund we got went from the US Treasury went straight to the oil industry that decided we needed $4 dollar per gallon gasoline just as we received our tax fund checks. Now realize this, every single member of the House GOP, and all but three members of the Senate GOP voted not only against Obama’s jobs creation program, but against the biggest middle-class tax cut ever, after voting for Bush’s gigantic tax cuts for the rich. Now the House Republican leader maintains that “the bill that was about jobs, jobs, jobs has turned into a bill that is about spending, spending, spending.” Now the question arises how is one to provide jobs without spending. Possibly John Boehner was thinking about slave labor.

President Obama wanted to pass the stimulus bill in a bi-partisan fashion. In his inaugural address, he promised to reach out to those willing to unclench their fist. The GOP responded not only with clenched fists, but with swinging clenched fists. We heard from those folks how partisan the development of the bill was, that Republicans were blocked from being involved. This was far from the truth, as the Republicans were allowed to bring their own substitute to the floor where they were unable to muster a majority. In addition, many Republican amendments were considered and voted on, but did not pass as 40 to 60 Republicans voted with the Democrats. Senator Arlen Specter(R-Pa) said before the final vote on last Friday that more of his colleagues would have voted for the bill was it not for being afraid of the political consequences. The grassroots pressure from the far-right constituents was too much, raising fears of Republican primary challenges. The Republicans in Congress is not a group of people Obama should expect anything from beyond what has been demonstrably in evidence. No better bipartisan help can be expected from the GOP obstructionists when it comes to addressing sagging median income, a broken healthcare system, crumbling infrastructure, and global warming. President Obama can work with the Democratic majorities to pass future legislation, with possibly one Republican vote in the Senate. Without such a vote forthcoming he can dare the GOP to thwart popular legislation with a filibuster.

Most economists agree that the current stimulus bill is not enough to get us out the hole we have been digging for the last 8 years. As Churchill said in `1942 “this is not the beginning of the end, not even the end of the beginning”.