Joe Conason: Why Obama Must Spend More

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091007_why_obama_must_spend_more/

Why Obama Must Spend More
Posted on Oct 7, 2009
White House / Pete Souza

By Joe Conason


The latest signals from the White House suggest that President Barack Obama now realizes he must do more—and quickly—to ease the economic suffering of working families. He knows that most Americans believe his administration and Congress have so far provided more help to major banks and Wall Street investment firms than to workers and small companies, as a survey released by pollster Peter Hart reported recently.

If voters still feel the same way a year from now, the midterm consequences for the Democrats will be severe, and deservedly so. Yet that same poll, conducted for the Economic Policy Institute, showed that most Americans would support the only action that might relieve the lingering pain of recession: more and faster spending.

snip//

Although the Obama stimulus package stopped the worst recession from turning into a global depression, the nation’s working families and small businesses have gotten too little help so far. Even if Congress is not yet ready to pass a second stimulus, which will ultimately prove necessary, the president should propose other actions.

Extending current unemployment benefits, food stamp assistance and health insurance benefits past the year’s end is the first and most obvious step. The second is to extend federal assistance to first-time homebuyers and to families facing mortgage foreclosures and evictions.

Beyond that, the president should employ conservative means to meet progressive ends. He should increase the Small Business Administration’s lending programs by billions of dollars, redirect stimulus and bailout funds toward public services and demand a “payroll tax holiday” on the first $20,000 of income, as suggested by Robert Reich, the former labor secretary.

All of those objectives could be achieved without passing a second stimulus bill. All of them would advance the public interest as well as the political interests of the president and his party. And none of them would be so easy for the Republicans to reject with their usual petulant “no.”

[dennis4868]

1. As usual....

Conason makes some really good points....Clinton was the best at employing conservative means to meet progressive ends....it drove the repubs crazy....haha!

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. Let's hope it doesn't get to the point where he will have to issue executive orders

all too belatedly.