The Bottom Line

I seem to be spending a lot of time at CNNMoney.com these days — which might not be a good thing for my morale, since the economic news hasn't been good.

Of course, for that matter, when was the last time the economic news was good?

This evening, Jeanne Sahadi, senior writer for CNNMoney.com, is reporting that the Congressional Budget Office has calculated (at the request of House Republicans) that "[t]he long-term cost of the $825 billion economic recovery package before Congress could rise to $1.2 trillion over 10 years."

For most of us, a figure that rises into the trillions is simply beyond comprehension.

Conservative Michelle Malkin calls it "stimulus you can't afford."

Well, if anyone has an alternative to the package that's being proposed, I'd like to hear it. So would a lot of other people, I imagine.

Realistically, what choice do we have?

That figure is the cost of the stimulus plan plus interest. I'm no economist, and I'll admit that it's not a pleasant situation, but I have a simple question. What's the cost of not doing anything?

Not just in terms of dollars but in terms of the impact on people's lives.

It seems to me that, in my history studies, I learned that Herbert Hoover and the Republicans essentially did nothing because they believed the economy would right itself and they didn't want to interfere.

So things got worse. And, in 1933, Nero — I mean, Hoover — turned over an economy to Franklin D. Roosevelt that was already mired in the early years of the Great Depression. It took the rest of that decade — and the outbreak of World War II — to bring the nation out of the depths of economic despair.

If, when next month's new jobless claims are calculated, we find out that the economy is continuing its recent trend and sheds another half million jobs, the number of people who have lost their jobs in the last year will exceed 3 million. And, without an economic stimulus package, how many more will lose their jobs before things finally start to turn around?

I realize that $1.2 trillion is a lot of money — but it seems to me that the Bush administration tried to do a lot of things on the cheap. The Bush administration assured Americans all the while that the war in Iraq could be won quickly and that it would mostly be paid for by the revenue from the oil fields in that country. Bush even made a dramatic landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln and made a speech to the sailors beneath a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" nearly six years ago.

It was even suggested that the oil revenue would generate a surplus for the American economy. The Iraqi people would throw flowers at our feet, we were told.

Instead, what do we have? Was the mission really accomplished? Did we get that surplus? Were flowers thrown at our feet?

No. As a matter of fact, we have, as my friend Kyle observes in his therapy malaria blog, a war that has consumed nearly $600 trillion. "Where does that money go?" asks Kyle. "To contractors with no oversight on whether they deliver or not, weapons manufacturers, constant construction of places we destroyed, and corporate executives of the above."

And, during Bush's last visit to Iraq, instead of having flowers thrown at his feet, a journalist threw shoes at his head.

The issue before us today is what can be done to hasten the time when the recovery is under way, when those who are unemployed can get jobs again, when those who are facing the loss of their homes can feel secure under their own roofs again.

If there are elements of the plan that should be scrapped and some money can be saved, by all means, let's hear a reasonable explanation — not a kneejerk reaction. Congress needs to be involved in this from the start. It needs to fulfill its constitutional duty — not march in mindless lockstep behind the president, as it did for so much of the Bush administration.

Time is certainly of the essence, but both Democrats and Republicans need to study the proposal and suggest logical changes if they have them to suggest. The taxpayers have paid for enough pork. There have been enough bridges to nowhere.

Let's not get mired in partisan debate. Let's remember that we're all on the same side, and let's have constructive discussions with one goal in mind — to end the recession.

That's the real bottom line.