A Skeptical View of the Democrats' Stimulus Ideas
Rep. Mike Rogers Sounds Alarm on Tax-and-Spend Policies
By Bluey Posted in Congress | Economic Stimulus | Granholm | Michigan — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
With all eyes on Michigan for today’s Republican primary, I interviewed one of the Wolverine State’s congressman, Rep. Mike Rogers, about Michigan’s economic struggles, the likelihood of a presidential executive order on earmarks and what he expects for the upcoming year on Capitol Hill.
Despite the exciting activity taking place across his state today, Rogers is in Washington for the start of a new session of Congress. Without a favorite in the GOP race for president, he’s remaining focused on policy debates on Capitol Hill, perhaps none bigger than the economic stimulus package being discussed by President Bush and congressional Democrats.
Rogers knows firsthand what it’s like to live through a poor economy. His state has suffered more than any other under the leadership of Gov. Jennifer Granholm, whose tax-and-spend plan to revive the state’s economy backfired miserably and has left Michigan with a 7.4% unemployment rate.
Now that all eyes have turned to the national economy, Rogers said it’s not surprising to see Sen. Hillary Clinton put forward a plan that would do more harm than good. Clinton’s massive proposal would cost a whopping $70 billion and serve mostly as a short-term handout to the neediest families. According to the Republican National Committee, which maintains a “Spend-O-Meter” for Clinton’s proposals, her latest plan would bring the total to $848.6 billion in new spending during just one term in office.
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Rogers knows that throwing money at the problem won’t work. That’s what Granholm did when Michigan fell on hard times -- raising taxes on individuals and business to pay for more government spending. Granholm tried to “tax the state’s way to prosperity,” Rogers told me. It turned out to be a horrible disaster, and for that reason he isn’t optimistic about what congressional Democrats will propose at the national level.
“I think the Democrats are going to go back to their roots and say, ‘If we have more government spending and we don’t necessarily cut taxes, we’ll stimulate the economy,’” he said. “I’m not optimistic that they won’t go back to big spending and high tax rates. They think that works for America, and that’s what they’ve been preaching about since they took over.”
Rogers said conservatives need to remain committed to a free-market approach that emphasizes competition and injects capital into the economy through lower tax rates. He dismissed the Democrats’ idea of issuing tax rebates -- similar to the $600 refund Bush gave taxpayers in 2001.
“What is going to stimulate job growth?” Rogers said. “Rebates alone can’t do it and won’t do it in and of itself. Our corporate tax rate is one of the highest among industrialized countries. We need to take a serious look at how we make anybody doing business in America more competitive. That means looking at the tax rates from stem to stern.”
In addition to pushing for lower tax rates, Rogers said conservatives on Capitol Hill must be committed to fiscal restraint when it comes to government spending. I asked him about the president’s consideration of the executive order canceling lawmakers’ pork-barrel projects.
“I’m not sure he can do it by executive order, but anything that starts drawing attention and starts putting pressure on what is an explosive problem here is OK by me,” Rogers said. “I believe transparency -- good old fashion sunlight -- cures all the dumb things that sneak their way into these bills.”
He added, “In the seven years I’ve been here, I’ve found that it is incredibly difficult to crack the nut of the appropriations process. I argue that there are Republicans and Democrats and then there are the appropriators.”
Rogers chastised Democrats for breaking most of the promises they made during the 2006 election regarding fiscal restraint. He cited their promise to cut earmarks in half as one of the broken commitments.
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A Skeptical View of the Democrats' Stimulus Ideas 5 Comments (0 topical, 5 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
economic concept of velocity. A bunch of small rebates will have nearly zero effect on the economy. Whereas a minor reduction in marginal or capital gains taxes would have a huge effect.
Of course if they knew anything about Economics they wouldn't be Democrats.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
We can expect this deja vu along with a series of small desperate measures.
However, the Dems have nothing to gain from any rescue of the economy. Their prospects soar as the market plunges.
All of our candidates had better start sounding economy-wise or they risk sounding irrelevant. Expect to hear "jobs creation" much more than we're currently hearing "change".
FDR and the Socialists before him created and maintained the Great Depression with these same policies!!! It is why they had to take over the Universities and Education to keep the kids from realising that it ALWAYS FAILS!!!!!
Some historian needs to go back an compile the policies that were implemented by those Presidents and show what they actually DID!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
A couple of thoughts occur to me here.
First, I think the GOP legislators should be taken to task as much as Democrat legislators for unbridled spending. Republicans certainly did not set a good example for their less-restrained Democrat colleagues.
Second, I think the problems with the economy are a result of somebody(s) in the administration was not paying attention when all of the mortgage lending abuses occurred. Somebody, somewhere, should have put out an alert for the banks to tighten up their lending practices. A lot of fraud was going on, and regulators were either not watching or were looking the other way. Somebody's bureaucratic head should roll. (Shades of the S&L debacle.)
And that leads us to this "happy" story in TimesOnline.
"The three wealthiest Japanese finance houses are set to step into the worsening sub-prime carnage as the 'silent investment partners' of Wall Street and Europe's stricken banking titans.
"Senior sources at the 'big three' Tokyo megabanks told The Times that they had readied a combined cashpile of as much as $10 billion (£5 billion) and were open to negotiation with any struggling Wall Street bank that approached them for a cash infusion."
Just what we need. More foreign investment in our economy. Not.
I think Hillary was trying to evoke the ghosts of FDR with her own robust stimulus that called for increased government spending in all sorts of places. I think she is not only paying homage to FDR but also to her own socialist roots.
What is truly fascinating about the stimulus package of the Dems and of the Reps is how it will clearly mark a sand in the line and turn the Bush tax cuts into a campaign issue. The Reps will defend them while the Dems will attack them.
Here is my analysis of Hillary's stimulus package...
The Provocateur