Bring on Some Geeks!

I know you’re all waking up this morning talking about the stimulus football but I can’t let pass what happened earlier on Sunday without notice.

The US government is about to spend 800 billion or 900 billion or a trillion dollars on a stimulus “program” and that was, rightly, the topic of every one of the major Sunday political television talk shows. Shows that are the closest thing America still has to relatively thorough discussions of critically important issues. Ha!

This week ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC showed just what they think of any serious discussion about the largest single spending bill in the history of this country — a bill that could stave off another Great Depression or sink us deep into one. There were plenty of politicians and analysts to trade talking points and, as usual, virtually no intervention from any of the hosts to insert some reality into the mix. Incredible assertions passed by with nary a peep. And worst of all, amidst all the various guests on all the various shows there was but one, count ‘em, one economist.

Now I know economists aren’t the first people who come to mind when you are programming television but we’re talking about a trillion bucks folks! Bring on some geeks!

NBC’s Meet the Press was the lone show that bothered to have an economist on to ask him about the stimulus program and what he thought about it. Unfortunately David Gregory invited an economist who was also an advisor to John McCain’s Presidential campaign! Mark Zandi is the chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com and actually supports the stimulus plan as it is unfolding. But really, couldn’t NBC find an economist who wasn’t on the payroll of a recent political candidate?

I guess beggars can’t be choosers. Especially when you have to undergo head-snapping drivel from elected officials who can’t even be bothered to read the stimulus bill. Check out Arizona’s other Republican Senator Jon Kyl (on Fox News Sunday): “The centerpiece of this is a $500 rebate to folks, about 27 percent of whom don’t even pay federal income tax. That didn’t work last year. It’s not going to work this year. And so that’s not a good place to start.”

Where to begin? First it is NOT a “$500 rebate to folks” it is instead roughly $10 a week less taken out of workers’ checks for taxes. Second the rebate checks Kyl says didn’t work (and he’s right) were the work of the President he supported (Bush) and were mailed out as a single check. People did exactly what most economists said they would do with it — pay off debts and put it in the bank. They did not spend it. So third, Kyl’s contention that this stimulus program’s tax rebate won’t work is absurd on it’s face and he knows it. Too bad Chris Wallace didn’t bother reminding the fine Senator of that.

And then there’s David Gregory questioning John Kerry:

MR. GREGORY: “Martin Feldstein, conservative economist at Harvard but a proponent of the stimulus plan, offered criticism this week about that.  This is what he said: ‘The plan is to give a tax cut of $500 a year for two years to each unemployed person. That’s not a good way to increase consumer spending. Experience shows that the money from such temporary, lump-sum tax cuts is largely saved or used to pay down debt. Only about 15 percent of last year’s tax rebates led to additional spending.’ Senator Kerry, will people go out and spend this money?

SEN. KERRY: “Probably not. Some of them will, obviously, pay down debts; some of them will pay their rent, stay in their–hopefully stay in their rental home at this point.”

Whoa! These guys are unbe-fricken-lievable. Gregory quotes from an economist who simply gets what’s in the plan wrong and then Kerry doesn’t bother to correct him. Senator Kerry, in the form known as “Sunday Morning Political Show” you are the designated Democrat. The least you can do is understand a central element of your party’s stimulus bill — an element that the GOP has been using against you by lying about it — and correct the record.

Of course what would really have been nice is to discuss any of this with an honest-to-God independent economist. But I ask too much. Gaahhhd! (Thanks Napole0n)