Republicans just say No to more economic stimulus.
Two leading Republicans say they do not support President Obama's plan to broaden, deepen, and extend a payroll tax cut to stimulate the economy in the short-term.
In a briefing with reporters in the Capitol Tuesday, the House and Senate GOP conference chairs said they're through with short-term stimulus measures, even if they take the form of tax cuts.
"Well they've tried this once, and it hasn't seemed to be working," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).
His Senate counterpart, Lamar Alexander (R-TN) echoed this view.
"We don't need short-term gestures, we need long-term strategies that build into our system simpler taxes, lower taxes, fewer mandates, lower costs, more certainty, any changes in the debt structure of tax reform ought to come out of the Vice President's talks or part of a major tax reform," Alexander said. "If short-term government programs work, we wouldn't have 9% unemployment today because the government has tried it. So we've proved that doesn't work, unforutnately."
Republicans are so eager to sabotage the economic recovery effort, they won't even support the extension tax-cuts.
And the stimulus did work, by the way. The American Recovery and Reinvestment act saved or created as many as 3 million jobs which would have otherwise been lost.
The firesale of budget-cuts and layoffs that we are witnessing across the nation at the state level are taking place now primarily because the stimulus funds which kept those states afloat have, for the most part, dried up. Some states, such as Florida, are still including stimulus funds in their budgets while their respective governors also claim that the stimulus didn't work. If that's truly the case, can we have the money back?
If the stimulus really didn't work, unemployment would currently be northwards of 12% or more, not 9%. The only true failing of the stimulus program is that it wasn't big enough.