Michael,
First of all, almost everyone I have read believes that it is important for the US govt (along with other govts) to be spending a lot of money right now in order to stimulate demand. You can argue about the precise amount--many seem to believe that we are not spending enough, and the reason most people ascribe to the market going up yesterday was the expectation that the Chinese would announce that they would spend more and the reason for the market selling off today was that China said that it was NOT spending more. But most people believe that we need to spend a lot of money even if it means increasing the debt.
Second, you can also argue about how the money is being spent, and when it is spent. But the amount of money going to "earmarks" in this bill is something like 2% or less. It is next to nothing.
Third, not too many want Washington to "control" the financial system, although many people do want Washington to "regulate" and "oversee" it. You may assert that Washington is incompetent, and would drive the financial system in some sort of bankruptcy, but that assertion would ring a little hollow under the present circumstances. Tim argues that we haven't practiced lassez faire during the Bush administration, but most people would agree that the Fed, SEC and Treasury have been extremely lax in their oversight, and that laxity allowed banks to get away with leverage that was too high, reserves too low, and off-shore adventures (including here AIG's adventure in London) that have done as good a number on the financial system as any govt has done, enriching a few "individualist" capitalist heroes enormously in the process.
Finally, to compare the spending that Obama plans to do with the spending that Bush did is, well, obscene. Obama has already said that he didn't come into office thinking, "Oh goody, I get to spend trillions of dollars." The country's balance sheet was just starting to recover from the tax cut binge of the 80s when Bush came to office. Instead of keeping it strong, Bush decimated it with tax cuts too large and badly targeted (please note, I am not arguing here that there should have been no tax cut in 2001-02, just a different one that took into account the future liabilities of the country as well as the national problems that we faced then and still face now). |
