Bush budgets mock Republicans balking at stimulus

Be sure to check out this excellent column from Gene Lyons:

Contrary to GOP dogma, Bush's tax cuts failed to pay for themselves. As Obama pointed out during his Feb. 9 press conference, the national debt doubled on his predecessor's watch. The Iraq war alone cost several times more than Obama's stimulus plan. Republicans like Sen. John McCain, who voted to spend billions rebuilding Iraqi roads, schools and power plants, now calls it "criminal" to rebuild them here at home.

GOP politicians stood quietly by when Bush's Coalition Provisional Authority airlifted $12 billion in cash, 363 tons of crisp, shrink-wrapped $100 bills to Iraq. Then lost a reported $9 billion of it. As in, the money vanished - permanently. Yeah, it sounds like the premise of a George Clooney movie, but it's an historical fact. Odd how quiet the allegedly liberal media's been about it, don't you think? Imagine the uproar had a Democratic administration done that.

...Together, the centrists slashed billions from the stimulus in a ham-fisted fashion. Several cuts strike most economists as shortsighted. Broadly speaking, the more cash Obama's plan puts into the hands of people certain to spend it, the more stimulus it provides the broader economy. Mark Zandi at Moody's Economy.com, a former adviser to Sen. McCain's presidential campaign, has produced a chart estimating how much bang for the buck the stimulus provides: Every dollar spent on unemployment benefits should generate $1.64 increase GDP, a dollar on food stamps, $1.73, etc. Least effective are income-tax cuts for people who won't spend it.