A Perpetual Political, Pissing Contest – The Stimulus One Year Later

Bloomberg Television did an hour special on Wed night, Feb. 17, 2010 on the federal stimulus spending, joining the chorus of news reports yesterday.

The hour broadcast featured a more in depth analysis than most of the other news outlets aired. The consensus by liberal economists like Jared Bernstein who works for Vice President Joe Biden, is that the stimulus is 75% spent, and that the national unemployment rate would have been 11% without the stimulus. Since the national unemployment rate is hovering around 10%, (9.7% on Feb. 5), it appears that the stimulus has only had a marginal effect on the unemployment rate. Like 1%.

The Republican rebuttal came from Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who last year came out against the stimulus, but since then has taken the money. Governor Barbour admitted that the stimulus has helped his state. “Most of the money has gone to the state government in Mississippi,” Barbour said.

Barbour is not against the stimulus per se. He just thinks that they spent too much money. “They could have spent half the money for the same result," he said. Since he’s not an economist one wonders how he reached that one half figure. Since most government funded projects have a hefty dose of waste, you could say that about almost any government funded project.

One prescient point that Governor Barbour made is that the stimulus should have been more spread out because when the funding ends, "the spending will fall off a cliff."

Governor Barbour explained that the stimulus is funding a much needed project to improve harbor container facilities along the gulf coast, in his state. He spoke about an expected increase in shipping that will result from an enlargement of the Panama Canal. Since this Panama Canal project hasn’t been mentioned in the news media, one wonders why the media doesn’t cover it rather than the usual Washington bickering, like this stimulus pissing contest.

The conclusion that I drew from the Bloomberg program is that the federal stimulus needs to be better directed, and that the criticism spear headed by Governor Barbour is mostly partisanship. With the two faced House Minority Whip, Eric Cantor, voting against the stimulus and than posing for pictures at ribbon cutting ceremonies, perhaps Cantor should have a nasty argument with himself.

With all this bipartisan bickering and Elmer Gantry, phony grandstanding, it’s no wonder why Indiana Senator, Evan Bayh is walking away.

Perhaps the politicians should focus on making the stimulus more effective rather than simply opposing it or praising it.