Proponents of the $787 stimulus bill had only one complaint when President Obama signed the bill into law. It wasn’t big enough. While Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi acknowledged yesterday that the stimulus plan needs time to work she also said, “You have to keep the door open” for the possibility of a second stimulus.
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, went one step further saying, “”We are going to need more taxpayer money up front. I think another stimulus package is a reasonable probability given where things are going.” Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, says we should give the first one a chance. And economist Arnold Kling has a great list of points for why the risks of a large stimulus are greater than that of a small stimulus.
Opponents of the stimulus had a lot of complaints. Chief among them is that it won’t work. For a number of reasons why it won’t work, check out The Heritage Foundation’s Rapid Response to the Economic Stimulus page.
An alternative to a second stimulus is the No Cost Stimulus. Congressman Rob Bishop (R–UT) and Senator David Vitter (R–LA) recently introduced legislation that would create an estimated 2 million jobs, increase gross domestic product $10 trillion over the next 30 years, and lower energy costs—all without a huge expense to the taxpayer.
The No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009 would do this by expanding domestic energy supply and streamlining burdensome, unnecessary environmental review processes that have placed a stranglehold on access to reliable U.S. energy sources for decades. For more, see here.
