Do We Need An Economic Stimulus Package?
First of all, I’d like to apologize for my total neglect of this blog. Schoolwork is catching up and as the quarter is ending, all of my projects and work deadlines are coming up, not to mention all of the exams I’ve had to take. It can certainly take its toll. Expect a general slow down of posts from once a day to a few per week. That will be my goal at least.
One of the main topics of discussion that I’ve seen is whether or not the economic stimulus package will do any good. Liberals will praise it. Conservatives condemn it. I asked Twitterers whether or not we even needed this package and if it will work. Here’s how I see it.
The whole point of the stimulus package is to increase government spending into the US’s infrastructure. Investing in infrastructure will help to promote faster economic growth in the future, all the while raising current GDP. Investing in infrastructure should help to bring in more jobs and in the end take us out of the recession with a stronger economic growth plan. It’s a very Keynesian approach to solving the current crisis, an it sounds good on paper.
Conservatives will argue that the economic stimulus package is but a load of crap that will only help to raise the national debt and will provide absolutely no relief because of how the bill will allocate the money. If you take a look at one of the Black Sphere’s latest posts, Education in the Financial Bailout – Pork-A-Palooza II, you’ll see that the author’s concern is that of spending money in education that will mostly go to waste. If you agree that the public education system is mostly ineffective and inefficient, then you can easily agree that investing a lot of deficit money into a system that will make poor use of the funds is a cause for concern.
Democrats are of course complaining that Republicans are taking a party stance on the economic stimulus package and are outright rejecting the bill. Although it’ll most likely pass anyway, I really feel the specifics of the bill need to be worked out between the two parties to make sure that funds aren’t being wasted, because throwing 800+ billion dollars into programs that are ineffective and/or inefficient are not going to help achieve the results we want.
Of course, if you’re a Monetarist, the stimulus package is worthless anyway. 
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Allen Taylor Said,
January 30, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor
Alberto Said,
January 30, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
Welcome to Juniorpolitics!
Thanks for the sign up, I appreciate it. I’ll be checking out your site at some point.
JollyRoger Said,
January 31, 2009 @ 8:21 pm
There is no question; if the stimulus package spends money the right way, all economic activity will benefit. Many institutions are still housed in WPA buildings, we still drive over WPA bridges, Appalachia recovered a lot of its forested land courtesy of the CCC, and the Rural Electrification Act is almost certainly why there is now electricity in a lot of red state America. Privatization is not always a better way to go; if you don’t believe it, just look at the moronic monkey’s privatizations of things like Medicare and VA/soldier healthcare, and see for yourself what we got. Better yet, ask a vet, or someone dependent on a privatized Medicare plan.
Alberto Said,
February 1, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
Oh I DO believe it. For example, I always thought health insurance should be publicized anyway…. I don’t think the current model is self-sustaining and it also makes no sense.
Public works that create jobs AND help to improve America is definitely the way to go.
I want to see something like the Rural Electrification Act with broadband Internet. Think it’ll happen?
Crystal Said,
February 9, 2009 @ 1:03 am
My mom works for Fannie Mae, and she told me that Human Resources will come to your cubicle to tell you, “I’m sorry we have to let you go, you have five minutes to clear out your space”. When the HR officer comes to your floor, you can imagine them wearing a black machine suit and hear the Darth Vader theme song playing in your head (or if you prefer, for those Harry Potter fans, feel the cold chill of the dementors). Already, everyone has their stuff packed in boxes just in case. You drive to work in the morning not knowing if you’ll have a job the next day, if you’ll have health insurance for your family, if you’ll be able to continue financing your child’s education for the next four years.
I sincerely hope that Obama can bring about a boost to our economy and change to our nation and livelihood.
Alberto Said,
February 9, 2009 @ 1:08 am
It is NOT the best time to be working for Fannie Mae at all.
Thanks for visiting and commenting!
Rick Dionne Said,
February 15, 2009 @ 10:36 am
No we do not need a stimulus package. Time will correct the current inbalances in the market for all goods and services. Further, in respect fro our now “seldom used” U S Constitution, the President and Congress do not have the authority to spend our money on this type of package of pork. The only reason they continue to do so is
because we have not stopped them. If you feel they are spending money they shouldn’t be, spending it in the wrong way or that you are tired of them having a hand in your pocket you need to tell them.
Congressmen and women and Senators alike. I fear that as the disgust builds around the country, that some day we will see another Boston Tea Party, only this time it won’t be crates of tea, but politicians we throw in. It won’t be Boston Harbor, but the nearest harbor you can find. Write your legislator, I do regularly.
Alberto Said,
February 15, 2009 @ 8:07 pm
I agree that time will ultimately fix the market, but what to do about people hurting now?
Thanks for visiting and voicing your thoughts!
Tanner Said,
April 14, 2009 @ 9:37 pm
Dear Alberto,
First of all I have to say that your site is very informative and I greatly appreciate you managing it!
Although I agree with most of what you say, I beleive that investing in the educational sector would be beneficial to the long term prosperity of our economy because this money could help reform the ineffective and inefficient aspects of our schools.
Reforms would include researching whether all the payed teachers and administrators are really necessary. I beleive that we should use computer programs to teach “some” classes that are applicable to them, such as Rosetta Stone for a foreign language. Personally, I used Rosetta Stone and within the first 6 hours I learned almost more Spanish than I had within my entire first year of Spanish class in school! Even though layoffs to replace teachers with computers would not benefit the current crises that we face, we could layoff unnecesary teaching staff in the future to save money. This would help depreciate our deficit. To help prevent a drastic amount of layoffs we could somewhat persuade people not to go into the teaching feild now so that we arn’t neccesarily laying anybody off, but the number of teaching staff is decreasing, rather.
Perhaps, this is not the best time to initiate such a program due to the fact that it would cause so many layoffs, thus worsening the recession. If we don’t start this program now, we should definitely start it in the near future to make our education sector more efficient and reduce our national, and state, deficit.
-Tanner
Alberto Said,
April 26, 2009 @ 3:44 am
Welcome to my blog Tanner! I apologize for not getting to this post sooner, I’ve been extremely busy with my studies. I agree that education would be a great thing for this country to be investing in, and that there is a lot of garbage in the system right now. I suppose my only concern would be if each state would use the federal funding effectively, but that’s a whole other issue.
Thanks for commenting.
Luke Said,
June 4, 2009 @ 11:01 pm
I appreciate you managing this site. But I disagree with you and think that the stimulus package may bring us out of the reccession it may also permanently criple the U.S. Because of the spending put into this bill America will be tied to nations and the inflation of the U.S. Dollar will increase so much that it will become virtualy worthless. We will be broke. The Stimulus is saying to all the big companies that you are to big to fail. All of the banks will be contorlled by the Fed government which is Socialism. I praise and support Governor Rick Perry for keeping Stimulus money out of Texas!
Llarma McFarlene Said,
December 11, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
Very meaningful work. I applaud you for your insightfulness. Thank youuu. I encourage you to keep writing in your blog because you have and will continue to inspire many politics-interested scholars. Also, i agree the stimulus package is necessary. I suggest that your next blog is about cash-for-CLUNKERS, as I am very interested in this topic and I’m sure that many others are as well. Thank you for your time, and remember, “C4C”, (cash for clunkers).