Deja vu? House Passed the Stimulus with No Republican Support.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Just saw the end of the vote on CSPAN.

I'm happy to see the bill passed. I'm happy to see it passed because I believe it is a good solution based on research and evaluation of many different opinions. You can see my reasoning below if you like, but it's not the point of this post.

• Aside: An overwhelming majority of economists, experts on how to deal with a hemorraging market, agree that one tactic we can leverage to reinvigorate this economuy is a spending bill -- whether your spending on building barracks or re-sodding the mall. Tax cuts, for the most part, are pandering to the voters in terms of stimulating the economy since they are dollars which are not guarenteed to flow back into the economy. In good times, a tax cut can result in econonmic growth. In bad times, however, individuals are much more likely to sit on that extra cash (really, what are you going do with it? Head out to buy a car/home/widget?). The tax cuts in this bill targeted towards business are helpful, but the truly prohibitive cost keeping small business from hiring employees is the cost of insurance. Thus, a payroll tax cut alone is unlikely to result in a hiring spree.
  

I'm deeply troubled by the tone of this vote.

Democrat or republican, these are people we elect to represent us. They are supposed to be informed, and to be able to think for themselves. 

Under this philosophy, I would like to believe that each of the representatives who voted today did so having: 

1. Read the bill
   
2. Evaluated expert opinions
   
3. Talked to their constituents 
   

I have a hard time believing that all 178 republicans came to the very same opinion -- consequently, the same goes for the dems. All 246 of you believe this bill is the best for your district? I came to the conclusion that it would be -- but we each have our own unique thought processes, we assign value differently, we have variying priorities. And we SHOULD. 

It would be incredibly interesting to interview every single rep. and get each of their reasons for voting yay or nay.