In another insightful post from Shari Shapiro and the corresponding story at GreenBiz.com at Green Building Law Blog, Shari points out that the stimulus package looks at the present and the past without looking toward the future.
The proposed stimulus is nothing short of unsurprising. It focuses very much on bailing out and shoring up the perceived emergencies without leading to actual change. Whether through energy sustainability or more effective (not necessarily more) regulation, change must occur. “Job creation” without an eye to the future is just dealing with a broken window and not actually fixing the economy. Money is not the answer, it never has been. The politicos in Washington are looking at votes and sticking with the bunker mentality that led to so many unsustainable “temporary” programs in the past. A comment at GreenerBiz.Com summed it up nicely in response to Ms. Shapiro’s article when the commenter stated:
“The purpose of the “stimulus package” is to stimulate consumers and businesses back to a level of unsustainable borrowing and spending.”
I wish I could say I am surprised by all of this, but, alas, I am not. This is more spending for less return, a fairly typical response. I could say more but James Bedell has so thoughtfully spoken on the subject at Konstructr that I defer to his wisdom.
Please let me know your thoughts and comments. Also, I am trying out Zemanta, let me know what you think. (Thanks to Martha Sperry at Advocate’s Studio).
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I love this post. Paul Krugman has a very insightful (duh, he did win the Nobel Prize) on how the Centrists killed the efficacy of this bill here–http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090209/OPINION/902090225/1042?Title=KRUGMAN__A_centrist_threat_to_the_stimulus_plan
Interesting thought Shari. He is always provocative. I can’t tell if he is arguing for more spending or just different spending. Remember, the feds are in a serious debt hole trying to dig the country at large out of a hole. I don’t know that more spending is the answer (it rarely is). More likely less, but more focused spending would have been a better result. Let’s see what happens in committee.