Political Communication blog

The first thing he needs to do is make sure the Republicans don't control the message, which I think he began to do effectively in his speech today at the Energy Department.

For example, he took on Republican critics who labeled as pork the part of the stimulus plan that calls for replacing the entire fleet of government vehicles with newer, more fuel efficient cars and trucks. His comment of "are these folks serious?" reflects my sentiments exactly.

The replacement and shift means jobs for Americans to produce and maintain the new vehicles, a reduction in consumption, a reduction in reliance on foreign oil, and overall long-term savings. And as Obama pointed out, it offers an example and new standards for the rest of Americans to follow. An investment today means a more responsible tomorrow.

I thought Republicans were for all of those things already, but maybe I was wrong.
 

So far I feel like Obama has handled the situation ok since he did apologize for his mistake with Tom Daschle. And as far as the stimulus package I can see both sides of the argument. Something has to be done to help stimulate the economy, but I feel the current package contains a lot of unneccessary, excess spending.
 

I feel like obama is handling the situation ok. I do not agree with the idea of the stimulus package nor do i understand the correlation of how the package will improve the economy.
 

This situation is really sticky! I know that a great deal of Obama’s plans seem over the top. I feel like he is just now realizing that he CAN NOT do a lot of the things he wanted to do and the HE doesn’t have near the power he thought he would. Also his stimulus plan is almost exactly what Bush tried to do (except on a grander scale) and it didn’t work the first time, I doubt it will work this time. Obama can get ready for an onrush of criticism and loss of support. He is going to have to make himself overly visible to the media, and try to have some of the important details more clearly explained to the public, but then again if he does that more people will see how scary it is to put that much money out there with out an idea of how much it will really help to stimulate the economy!?
 

Actually, Obama's stimulus plan is the opposite of Bush's ideas on how to stimulate the economy. (Don't confuse the stimulus plan with the Bush admin's TARP bill, which is a whole lot of money meant to kickstart banks into lending again and take some of their worst assets off their books.)

Bush's (and the Republican congressmen) ideas on how to stimulate the economy are entirely based on tax cuts. The Republican thinking is that if you cut taxes, it leaves more money in people's pockets (read, really wealthy people) with the supposition that they will then use that wealth to fund new businesses and create jobs. For the less wealthy, the extra money is supposed to encourage them to start spending again, buying products and stimulating the economy from that end. However there is absolutely no guarantee that this would actually happen. Especially in this economic climate, what is more likely is that the wealthy will save those extra dollars, and the middle class consumers will save and pay down their debts. It's just not the kind of climate right now where the people with money will take risks (which is where the job creation would result). That's one theory on how to stimulate the economy.

The other approach, which is what Obama and most Democrats support, is to use spending to stimulate the economy. The thinking is that by investing in various areas and with the government funding new projects, research and education, new jobs will be thus created. This is a far more direct way to immediately create jobs. Republicans hate the idea because it does have the government take on more debt from the outset, but if you look at it in the long term, there are benefits that extend beyond that debt.

First, you will quickly put a lot of people back to work. Where the Republicans are saying certain projects are pork-barrel spending, such as the conversion of the entire government fleet to fuel-efficient vehicles, a more neutral person would note that such spending would create jobs as Americans would be building and servicing those vehicles. The increased employment means tax revenue, which pays down that initial debt. A side benefit is reduced fuel consumption.

Another goal of the stimulus, one we can all directly relate to, is the funding of education by way of student loans and projects to upgrade and build schools. In the short term, such building projects puts a lot of people back to work. In the long term, we have a better educated population, which increases productivity and ingenuity. If you look back into the history of the United States, one major reason why our country became the world leader that it is today, is our policies of compulsory education.

There are other projects on the board, such as rebuilding bridges, replacing roads and building new power grids. Besides creating jobs, those are also investments in the nation's infrastructure. It just makes us a healthier nation in the long run.

Republicans argue that all those things would happen naturally, if the right people had enough extra money in their accounts. Democrats are not so trusting in the free market. A mix of the two ideas is probably the best compromise, which is why there are both tax cuts and spending in the stimulus bill-- coincidentally at about the same percentage as the split of Democrats to Republicans in the Senate. Amazingly, Republicans still want to make the plan almost entirely tax cuts.

Which approach do you think is the right one?