Friday, January 30, 2009

White House Fact Sheet on Stimulus

The White House released a fact sheet explaining its support for fiscal stimulus plan. Here's an excerpt:
The President’s economic plan has three main goals:
  • Encourage consumer spending that will continue to boost the economic recovery and create jobs.
  • Promote investment by individuals and businesses that will lead to economic growth and job creation.
  • Deliver critical help to unemployed citizens.
No surprise there, right? After all, President Obama has been quite clear about his support for a stimulus plan to achieve these goals, all of which are textbook Keynesian stuff.

Gotcha!

The White House fact sheet in question was released in the name of former President George W. Bush, on January 7, 2003. You can read the whole thing here (lots of plugs for tax cuts, of course).

Here's an entertaining chunk of text from a page A1 story in the LA Times the next day:

With Democrats criticizing Bush’s plan for its effect on the deficit, Republicans – who for years pushed for a balanced budget – are in the unusual position of arguing that deficits do not matter.

What we need to do for an economic stimulus package is not look at what the cost is but what the impact will be on the economy,” said Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).

How things change.

1 comment:

  1. They do and they don't.

    Santorum has been sacked (heh heh heh).

    In '01 the Democrats were extorted into voting for Bush's disastrous package ("Gimme the dough or the widows and orphans get it!").

    In '93 not one Republican voted for the Democratic President's budget. I suspect that the Democrats have learned something about managing spin since then (and the crisis is significantly deeper). So I'm hoping that the mid-term elections will come out with juster desserts. What do you think?

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