Stimulus Plan: Economic Prozac or Economic Viagra?

By Bill Glynn

What will the plan do for a depressed and impotent economy? Compare the metrics today to The Great Depression and it is actually on par much worse. 65,000 jobs cut just this week. There is a lot more coming. I really hate being the bearer of all this bad news over the last year, but it's reality. The government continues to press ahead with big government bailing out big business, as necessary as most of it is.

Now here comes $900 billion more. Will this really stimulate the economy? How long will it take to see these tax cuts work and do we really think passing out economic Prozac in the form of paltry stimulus checks will do anything. The plan will not help companies brace against the problems causing millions to get the ax. 25% of the bill alone is tax cuts. We must be crazy to mint and borrow more and then at the same time cut our revenue. It's simply insane! Plus we all know how many times this longer term money will be stepped on anyway before it ever reaches the ground.

The money in the bill is so convoluted and only about half will actually spur jobs - largely in remodeling and construction, fixing bridges, roads, schools, and investing in renewable energy will create jobs for sure. But this is going to take a few years. These jobs also fall way outside many of the unemployed skill sets and even if millions go to work under these programs, there will be large scale underemployment. Plus, I think we all know how the construction industry works when it comes to big projects. "The Big Dig" in Boston should be a beacon to understand how costly and how dirty hands get into the till. [more...]