Economic Stimulus on The Cheap

For US senators, decreasing the size of the stimulus package may be clever politics. But it's not smart economics

by Dean Baker

The moderates in the Senate of both parties are very proud of themselves for having negotiated a slimmed down version of the stimulus package. They apparently knocked out more than $100bn in spending, trimming the package to less than $400bn a year.

This led to a round of self-congratulations at what this crew considered a major accomplishment. Those of us who were not a party to the negotiations, and who don't share the peculiar thought processes of the moderate clique, see the primary outcome of this effort as having taken one million jobs out of the stimulus.