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Many Americans Still Wary of Stimulus

By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Barack, Congress, Economy, Stimulus

As the stimulus bill works its way closer to completion and the President continues his PR push, many Americans aren’t yet sold on the plan. While a Pew Center Research Poll found 51% support the bill, those numbers have declined from 57% with the biggest drop coming from those who’ve “heard a lot” about the stimulus. That group favors the package by 49% to 41%, but they used to favor it by nearly two-thirds.

The problem is, this is a bill that is easier for most people to oppose than to support. Anyone who cares to, can easily find tens of billions of dollars in spending that seems unnecessary. It’s hard to get excited about tens of billions in superfluous spending, even if the general idea behind the bill is solid. Many Democrats don’t seem to understand that concern. Most have adopted the “all spending is good spending” mantra. If that was true, shouldn’t President Bush’s wastrel ways have been enough to stave off the recession? Clearly some spending is just waste, and that truth doesn’t change just because the party in charge changes.

With a $10 trillion national debt, we can hardly afford more waste.

Unfortunately, for those of us concerned by some of the cavalier spending of this bill, the upcoming House and Senate negotiations are unlikely to make us feel better. More likely than not, the bill will expand with the usual back scratching deals. And President Obama has made it clear he will sign just about anything which comes across his desk, so long as it’s labeled a stimulus.

I actually expect elements of the stimulus to work. I just hope the economic gain far outweighs the wastefulness. I had higher hopes for Obama and the Democrats.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 and is filed under Barack, Congress, Economy, Stimulus. 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.

5 Responses to “Many Americans Still Wary of Stimulus”

  1. mw Says:
    February 10th, 2009 at 8:50 pm

    “Most [Democrats] have adopted the “all spending is good spending” mantra. If that was true, shouldn’t President Bush’s wastrel ways have been enough to stave off the recession? Clearly some spending is just waste, and that truth doesn’t change just because the party in charge changes.” ASC

    Bingo.

    Here is the real CHANGE you voted for America…

    Instead of wasteful fiscally irresponsible and corrupt Republican controlled government spending money we don’t have on Republican pork, constituencies, contributors, and unproven pet ideologies led by a president who couldn’t talk…

    We now have a wasteful fiscally irresponsible and corrupt Democratic controlled government spending money we don’t have on Democratic pork, constituencies, contributors, and unproven pet ideologies led by a president who talks a good game.

    Change you can rely on.

  2. Below The Beltway » Blog Archive » Change That Will Bankrupt Us Says:
    February 11th, 2009 at 6:44 am

    [...] current state of America, summed up quite nicely in this comment over at Donklephant: Instead of wasteful fiscally irresponsible and corrupt Republican controlled government spending [...]

  3. Jim S Says:
    February 11th, 2009 at 9:44 am

    No, we voted for something less hateful and irrational than your posts, mw.

  4. mw Says:
    February 11th, 2009 at 12:34 pm

    @Jim
    Apparently an asterisk and caveat was accidentally deleted from your comment. Here – let me fix it for you.

    No, we voted for something less hateful and irrational than your posts.*

    * Unless the subject of the comment or post are Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians, or anyone associated with the Bush Administration. In which case irrational hate is both encouraged and required.

  5. Jim S Says:
    February 12th, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    mw,

    Given that you’re not capable of fixing what passes for your own thoughts to reflect anything resembling reality somehow I doubt you can fix a post written by someone else.

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