Vox

Telegraphing Their Hits

In New York Magazine I find this quote from Jason Furman, Obama's chief economic policy adviser during the campaign & transition. (BTW: NY Mag dubs him "The New Brainiac")

He spends his days in the transition office, hammering out the details of Obama's massive stimulus plan."It's infrastructure. It's health care. It's energy. It's food stamps. It's everything.," he says wearily. And what if the $800 billion injection doesn't work? "Please don't worry," says Furman, cheerful as ever. "I don't want you to worry. The reality is, we can always come back a year later and do more"

Yes, folks, doesn't matter that it has already grown up over a TRILLION dollars - they can just come back next year and take more. He is partially right about what's in it, though. He said, "It's everything" - what he should have said was, "it's everything except anything that might result in creating jobs or economic opportunities" Instead, it seems to be a way for him to enact the programs the left has been clammering for (such as government run health care programs) under cover of these "troubling financial times"

Really, $300 million to fund STD research may result in a stimulus, but it certainly won't be economic.

UPDATE: Remember that Robert Reich said of the stimulus bill, "we need to make sure we are doing the most social good. We don't want jobs going to people who are already highly skilled. We don't want the jobs going to white male construction workers." So, apparently, if there are any jobs to be found, you are out of luck. . . unless you are non-skilled, non-white & somehow represent a "social good".

Posted by Vox at January 30, 2009 09:18 AM | politics