Want to Stimulate the Economy? Cut Taxes and Spending.

Michele Bachmann | January 22, 2009 5:15 PM

All we hear from the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress is the need for a multi-hundred-billion dollar economic stimulus plan to turn around our economy. According to them, the longer we wait, the more we'll inevitably have to spend to turn the economy around. What's most troubling about the Obama plan is that some of the very people who work for him don't even think it will work.

In fact, while under the leadership of the man that Obama just hired to be his Budget Director – the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Obama's stimulus plan won't work. In fact, the CBO concluded that there are serious doubts that the bulk of the spending would have any immediate effect on our economy.

According to a recent Bloomberg.com article:

"A Congressional Budget Office analysis of President Barack Obama ’s plan found that most of the approximately $355 billion in proposed discretionary spending on highways, renewable energy and other initiatives wouldn’t be spent before 2011. The government would spend about $26 billion of the money this year and $110 billion more next year, the report said. About $103 billion would be spent in 2011, while $53 billion would be spent in 2012 and $63 billion between 2013 and 2019."

The report indicates that the CBO expects a "slow" recovery to begin later this year and that the economy will expand by a "modest" 1.5 percent in 2010, so much of the stimulus may not come until after the economy has already begun to recover. If the CBO is correct, this gigantic stimulus package doesn't do much at all to stimulate the economy in the short-term despite what the Democrats say. It's simply a mechanism to implement an enormous expansion of government growth and influence. Instead of stimulating the economy to recover, this nearly $1-trillion spending bill will follow the early steps of economic recovery and add to an already large debt we’re placing on generations of taxpayers.

For a real alternative to help the sagging economy, check out The Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Tax Relief Act of 2009.

The best way to stimulate the economy and create jobs is to cut wasteful spending, reduce the tax burden on small businesses and families, and keep money in the private sector. Let’s make sure it stays that way.