More ‘Stimulus’ from President Obama

By most accounts, President Obama’s $800 billion “stimulus” bill that was passed in February 2009 with the promise of keeping unemployment below 8 percent was an absolute failure. However, last night in a speech to a joint session of Congress, the President demanded that it spend another $450 billion on more of the same “stimulus” that has left America with zero job growth and continued economic stagnation. But don’t worry. His top economic adviser Gene Sperling told NBC that this one would likely get us down to 8 percent.

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Despite Sperling’s predictions, there are a lot of problems with the broad outlines in the President’s proposal, not the least of which is the fact that President Obama is insisting Congress immediately pass a bill that doesn’t exist. No legislative details have been offered; nothing has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office; there has been no debate or negotiation; and there is no accompanying plan on how to pay for it. President Obama only promised he would talk about paying for it in the weeks to come, and that onus likely will fall on the congressional “super committee” that was supposed to be focused on reducing our debt. “Minor” details such as the lack of an actual bill or money to pay for it aside (or the fact that $450 billion in one year is more than twice as costly as the annual sticker price of Obama’s last foray into stimulus spending), there are serious substantive problems with the ideas the President proposed. Last night, Heritage’s experts provided their reactions to some of those proposals: More...

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