"I kept hearing that we had lots of projects that were shovel-ready," says one administration official. "But they weren't. We have think tanks that make a compelling case for Keynesian stimulus. What we need, it turns out, is a think tank that tells us how to actually do a stimulus -- how we can get the dollars out there now" to reduce unemployment. [snip]Jim here again. Recrimination first: the Obama administration's original sin will be the stimulus package, which was neither fish nor fowl. If they wanted to do Keynesian stimulus, it should have been MUCH bigger (1.2T instead of 800B.) It was also sold with the phrases "shovel ready" and "timely, targeted and temporary." I think they painted themselves into a corner with those words.
The disparity in the speed at which different projects get going is evident in the state's own tally of jobs funded through the stimulus dollars. By the end of 2009, stimulus money had funded 50,138 jobs in education but just 1,656 in transportation. Totaling all infrastructure spending in the stimulus, $10.6 billion was slated to come to California, $5.6 billion had been awarded, and just $1.2 billion spent by the end of last year.
What happened? Big government -- spending, that is -- ran into good government -- regulation, competitive bidding, environmental safeguards, the works. [snip]
"Environmental-impact reviews, historic-preservation safeguards, unionization of government workers -- these are good things, but they've changed the way government can operate. Plus which, the federal government said, 'We'll give you a ton of money, and we want you to spend it faster -- and better.' There are no exemptions from regulations that came with the stimulus funds. They didn't waive the requirement for competitive bidding; they stressed competitive bidding."
She continues, "You can't just build a new bridge. You've got to do environmental-impact reports, you have to open up the decision to community input, you face potential lawsuits. I'm not saying concern for environmental impacts should go away, but it makes it harder to deal with an economic crisis."
Most frustrating: I don't think Obama can get another stimulus package through. That was the only bullet, and they wasted it.
Perhaps Obama can do some good for the country and untangle the Gordian knot of red tape and regulations around construction. I doubt it, though.
6 comments:
Jim, you began by expressing frustration although it is not clear what you are frustrated by. Many on the left are frustrated by the fact, that initial drafts of the stimulus were indeed larger and much of it was changed with hopes of garnering bipartisan support. It did not despite a significant amount of the legislation being tax cuts. Then after passage the Republicans branded it as big-govt and a catastrophic failure when it clear was far from.
The same can said for healthcare reform which is a best a moderate, pro-insurance company, pro-pharma law. Again, branded as a disasterous, unconstitutional, socialist policy.
Elena Kagan, clearly a safe choice who 20 years ago would have received support from many republicans is now being branded as unqualified and the former speaker of the house has asked to be removed as a nominee before a hearing.
It is my understanding that the Climate and Energy bills are also moderate but republicans have backed away from support despite their signatures through the document. They appear to be controlled by a group on the far right that crosses America pronouncing that our taxes are too high despite being at a low point for the past fifty years.
So while you profess frustration at a policy decision that could have had greater impact, remember that there is a good portion of our current government doing everything they can to make sure the impact is as little as possible.
Rich, I find it interesting that you can take a policy argument and make it about the non-cooperation of the party that is out of power.
My frustration is this: the stimulus package was sold to this country as being about job creation, shovel-ready projects and that it would "timely, targeted and temporary."
The policy argument against the stimulus was that it is very difficult to do New Deal-style stimulus in the modern age. Federal regulations (environment, labor, agreements with unions, etc.) make it very difficult to move quickly. What's the point of a stimulus that gets there 1 year after it's needed? For any number of reasons, this not-very-sexy argument was ignored by all.
When you hear your opinions on the issue being repeated by a labor-oriented liberal policy magazine one year after the fait accompli, that's frustrating.
Jim,
Something weird with congress is right now is that party out of power seems to have much more sway on policy than the democrats. It pisses me off because the republicans did the exact opposite during their reign throughout the 2000's. You think Bush gave a shit about being bi-partisan?
Bi-partisan doesn't seem to work in today's politics especially on issues that we can all agree on. What irritates me is that the same republicans who branded the stimulus as a failure, now go out touting the jobs it created for their constituents even though they didn't vote for it. Which means that they could see that the stimulus was needed, but decided that trying to undermine the administration was more important. They put the power of their party before the needs of the country.
This is not solely a republican problem, because the democrats deserve a share of that blame as well. The democrats I feel have good ideas, but are terrible at enacting them.
Something I left unsaid yesterday is that my core frustration is the political difficulties of getting large-scale infrastructure projects completed. That is a problem, no matter the party in power.
Obama is more likely (again, in a Nixon-to-China way) to be able to affect positive change on this front.
As for the differences between the GOP and the Dems, I find the current Democrats to have difficulty in attracting loyalty from their red state representatives and Senators. Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu all have much more political power than Mitch McConnell.
I certainly picked up concern about government regulation slow spending of stimulus dollars. Although, I am not sure why this is an issue, we learn time and again that when the federal government funds private entities without oversight and regulation, we end up paying too much (money, health and environmental impacts, etc) for too little.
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