HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner

Giving a Voice to the “Stimulus Spending” Skeptics

In response to President-elect Obama’s request for Republican input, House Republicans formed a working group (led by Republican Whip Eric Cantor) aimed at developing constructive ideas that can be included in legislation to help put the nation’s economy on the path to recovery.

Yesterday, the working group held a hearing to discuss America’s economic recovery.  Joining the discussion were Governor Mitt Romney, Meg Whitman, Grover Norquist, Alex Brill, and Bill Beach.  In addition, the panel answered questions that were submitted for the panel by the American people via YouTube.  A video of the working group hearing is below.

In addition, Leader Boehner has solicited, and received, comments from prominent economists who are skeptical of Congressional Democrats’ trillion dollar spending plan.  Scholars’ opinions have continued to pour in, and they have been universally critical of the tax, spend, and borrow precepts of the Democratic proposal.  On January 7, Boehner released comments from dozens of skeptical economists, and since then, opinions have continued to stream in.

Following is some of the latest commentary made by economists about the impact of a massive government “stimulus spending” bill.   For a more detailed list, click here.

“I have a number of reservations about a major stimulus package. One is that it is not in any sense clear that the benefits justify the significant price tag of the package. Another concern is that the historical record of government stimulus programs is poor - I can’t think of a single fiscal stimulus program that demonstrably moderated a recession. But there is ample evidence based on peer-reviewed research that these programs have substantially damaged the U.S. economy, such as the New Deal programs in the 1930s. More recent stimulus attempts, such as the tax rebate in early 2008, did nothing but increase the deficit. The best policies are those that are evaluated carefully and not rushed out, and that are consistent with the key goals of long-run economic prosperity - broad-based tax reform that raises the incentives to work, save, and invest, promoting competition, and fostering economically open ties with other countries. Any fiscal policy should pass this test, and this one doesn’t seem to.”
-Lee Ohanian
Professor of Economics, University of California, Los Angeles
Director, Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research

“The stimulus plan is little more than a grossly-inefficient special-interest grab bag that will leave a massive burden for our grandchildren to pay and, in the meantime, deter development of more productive sectors of the economy in favor of those politically favored.”
-Roger Meiners
Professor of Economics, University of Texas at Arlington

Leader Boehner has repeatedly stated that “We can’t simply borrow and spend our way back to prosperity.”  Clearly many American economists tend to agree.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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