IT’S BEEN just a few weeks since Barack Obama took office as President of the United States, but judgment on his presidency is hardly premature. The passage and signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act this week was no small measure and largely reflects on how the national government will function for the next two years. Democrats are ignoring bipartisanship and exploiting their majority, Republicans are angry, and the government continues to spend with no regard for responsible fiscal policy. Regardless of what was proclaimed during election season, politics as usual continues to dominate in Washington. The ARRA is one-sided and wasteful, but it’s nothing we haven’t come to expect.
Democrats, who seized large majorities in both the House and Senate as a result of the elections, have ignored compromise in favor of a mostly polarizing plan. To simplify the positions, Democrats favor government spending to stimulate the economy, while Republicans favor tax cuts. The plan certainly includes tax cuts, but much more heavily favors government spending — almost three-quarters of the plan focuses on new government initiatives and investments. Democrats in the House and Senate loaded the bills with large amounts of government spending, and passed the bill as soon as a simple majority could be achieved. The Senate version passed with just three Republican votes, while the House version passed with none at all. With the election of Obama and vast majorities for Democrats in 2008, the American people demanded a change from the partisan politics of the last eight years, not a new domination by the opposite political party.
Despite the fact that the package was full of Democrat-endorsed initiatives, it’s not fair to completely blame the Democrats for the problems with the act. The plan includes more than $200 billion in tax credits for American citizens and businesses, and the Democrats did meet with Republicans prior to passage of the bill. Before the writing of the bill in either house, newly inaugurated Obama met with party leaders on both sides, actually spending more time meeting with Republican legislators than Democrats. The discussions gave the illusion of cooperation among the two parties, but ultimately ended with Obama reiterating the non-negotiable parts of a Democrat-sponsored stimulus package and Republicans frustrated with the huge amounts of spending. The dialogue provided a forum for Republicans to voice their concerns, but seems to have had no real intention of altering the legislation in favor of compromise. Even though these initiatives were present, cooperation was apparently not vital to either side; once again, consensus was ignored in favor of partisan bickering.
Whether you support a Democratic- or Republican- leaning stimulus package as described above, it’s my opinion that no stimulus package, at least on the size and scale of the ARRA, will do much to solve the economic problems our country faces. The Congressional Budget Office released a report on the bill predicting that, if passed, the gross domestic product will have an overall decrease by 2019. Any capitalist economy operates in a cyclical nature, with economic recessions eventually giving way to times of prosperity. The ARRA may ease the impact of this economic downturn in the short-term, pleasing the masses of American people demanding government action, but large amounts of government spending will actually hinder progress in the long-term, nursing industry away from competitive capitalism. And these disadvantages ignore the biggest problem with the act: unprecedented amounts of government spending. With no capital to back up the dollar, widespread insecurities about the economic system, and a $10 trillion national debt, the American economic system is already on shaky ground. The last thing our country needs is $700 billion-plus more uncontrolled, unaccounted-for spending by the national government. With countries around the world feeling the global economic crisis, foreign investment will hardly be a source for the billions of dollars called for by the stimulus package. Instead, the government will be forced to print the money, boosting inflation yet again and continuing the downward spiral of destabilization in our national economy.
Of course, I’m oversimplifying the issue. The conference committee’s report was over 1,000 pages, so it’s impossible to sum up the expansive intricacies of the package. It’s also slightly naïve to suggest that a body so entrenched in stagnation as Congress could make any kind of fundamental changes in its structure over such a short period of time. The new administration has made some efforts at bipartisanship, and that is certainly a step in the right direction. The stimulus will by no means spell the end of the United States and probably will function to assist slightly in lessening the impact of the recession, but will have little effect on our economic patterns in the long-run. For now, we must accept business as usual from Washington.
Anthony Nobles is a Viewpoint Writer for the Cavalier Daily.
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