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Let's get expert review of stimulus plan
David Frum
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TEXT OF COMMENTARY
KAI RYSSDAL: The president said today we risk -- and this is a quote -- "catastrophe," if Congress doesn't pass his stimulus bill soon. The plan at the moment is to have it ready for him next week.
But with the balance due on the Senate version north of $900 billion and climbing, the political in-fighting's nowhere near done.
And commentator David Frum says when we're spending that much money we ought be be taking a closer look.
DAVID FRUM: In his inaugural address, President Obama promised to restore science to its rightful place. This stimulus package working its way toward his desk presents a great opportunity to start.
The Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has voted $819 billion in new spending, ostensibly to fight the economic downturn. Critics and skeptics see the vote as Democratic boondoggling on a galactic scale.
Defenders reply that these critics belong to the party of Herbert Hoover, disregarding the crisis in the name of obsolete ideology.
Economics is not a science, exactly. But it does have enough scientific elements that it might contribute something useful to the debate.
Before the president signs anything, why don't we assemble a panel of distinguished economists -- say, the past half dozen chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers plus all the American Nobel prize winners -- to rate the different spending measures in the stimulus package according to how many jobs they will deliver at how much cost?
My guess is that we'll find that, while a minority of the spending will generate a reasonable return in the form of higher employment and faster growth, the majority of it is waste that will actually harm economic performance by shifting dollars from better to worse uses. But maybe that's just the kind of cynicism that President Obama deplored in his inaugural address. So, let's deploy some real expertise.
Then, let's make use of that expertise and refrain from spending unnecessary money. President Obama reportedly told Republican members of Congress that he does not think there is much waste in the federal budget. Even if he were right about that now -- and he's not -- he certainly will not be right after Congress adds another trillion dollars in spending.
That waste will be hard to eliminate once added. It's easier to suppress before it begins. This is supposed to be a brainy administration. It should not allow its budget policy to be made in the old manner of Tammany Hall. But that's what we are getting, and we will be sorry.
RYSSDAL: David Frum is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His most recent book is called, "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again."
I agree with the comments below. David Frum has to go. His party lost and lost big. The American people spoke and they said they wanted to depart from the ideology of the past 8 years. It is time for Mr. Frum to to go the way of Bill Kristol at the New York Times. There is no is no need for APM and Marketplace to pander to the right. Guess what, they aren't listening!
David Frum has been steadily undermining any attempt at progress and change since weeks before Obama was even in office. After 8 years of these supposedly "conservative" policies, why has the economy gone off the cliff? Suddenly Frum wants economists to study the issue. I'm sure that was his take 6-8 years ago when Bush/Cheney began destabilizing the economy. His "panel" is just a stall tactic so he can claim in six months that nothing has been accomplished. I think it's time to give Frum his pink slip and move on Marketplace. I'm all for a variety of perspective on your program but this guy is just using you to push his agenda. I've heard quite enough.
Ditto on Frum, warning darkly about "Tammany Hall". "Tammany Hall" is usually taken to refer to the immigrant-supported corrupt political establishment of New York City of the 19th century. Perhaps Frum could be more specific on the parallels he sees between this and a badly-needed national stimulus package being considered to counter an increasingly severe recession of the 21st century. Does he allege corruption in the process? Is this 3-week-old administration really an entrenched political machine? Perhaps he sees Barack Obama as boss Tweed? Do words mean anything any more? Or has political discourse in this country moved irreversibly beyond reason? And more generally, when there are so many other possible choices for more serious conservative or economic counterpoint commentary, why is it that Marketplace keeps awarding this soapbox so reliably to the neoconservative AEI, week after week?
Although I may disagree with him a lot of the time, I think today's essay by David Frum makes a lot of sense. We need the economic stimulus, but why not research it as carefully as possible to make it as effective as possible. Recent history shows that a few hundred billion is an easy thing to waste. It's too easy to simply villify the people who were doing the spending. I strongly support Obama, but never underestimate the pressures of politics as usual.
I don't understand why MarketPlace has continued to provide Mr. Frum a pulpit to spew his far right vitriolic economic pronouncements. Few seem to be anchored with facts. Why not ask Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter to appear weekly with Mr. Frum if you point is to give these extreme views a platform. Their opions are just as well founded as Mr. Frums. Can't we just have a nuetral economist providing factual information, historical perspective, or economic theory (with acknowledgement to the theory creators political leanings) without being forced to listen to Mr. Frums musings. After his comments, I like to just turn off my radio...so if you must persist in broadcasting his opions...you may want to put him on near the end of the show... so you still have the benefit of a few listeners.
It's becoming exceedingly tiresome to hear the slyly critical, conservative comments regarding the potential new financial plan of this administration -which seem to be a feature of your recent programs.[I just turned you off yesterday.] Today, it was ultra conservative David Frum, a guy who hasn't lived long enough to know much - especially about the challenges of the 1930s. Frankly, if the conservatives had so many answers in the last eight years, why are we in this mess?
