Obama...Let's Not Let Details Get In The Way Of My Gigantic Spending Plans

Tomato/Tomahto?

President Barack Obama says that "very modest differences" should not get in the way of swift congressional passage of a massive economic stimulus package.

It's a clever idea to minimize the differences rhetorically, makes it look like the Republicans are killing the country's hope of recovery over petty issues. It ignores one inconvenient truth...there are huge differences in philosophy and scale of the proposals.

Check out what the Republicans in the House are proposing...tax cuts. Lots of tax cuts that would put money in people's pockets and create (as opposed to 'spread around') wealth and real recovery.

Total cost of the House Republican plan? About $478 billion.*

(In the comments "Bald Ninja" asks how much of that is spending vs. tax cuts. According to this it was all tax cuts.)

Meanwhile the Democrats are proposing plans in the $800-$900 billion range.

And as for who has some differences to resolve, the President make want to ask House Democrats why they came up with only $182.3 billion in tax cuts when he originally proposed around $300 billion in "tax cuts" (though a good bit of that was really just transfer payments to non income tax payers).

These aren't "very modest differences", they are profoundly different versions of the role of government and people in a free society. Also, only one of these will actually work, while the other does nothing more than empower government for generations.

*I get the philosophy that says tax cuts don't cost anything and agree with it. I simply wrote "cost" before I realized the plan was all tax cuts. So please stop telling me I'm speaking like a liberal. I'm just not going to do a post on Supply Side Economics or the joys of dynamic budget scoring at the moment to clarify it further.

posted by DrewM. at 01:53 PM

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