Short-Term Thinking (Lamar vs. the Stimulus, Pt. 1)

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) raises some good points about the Stimulus Bill but comes up with the wrong answers.

“It borrows an unprecedented amount of money – $1.2 trillion – spent mostly on projects that don’t create jobs in the near term,” he says. And he defines the near term as “in the next few months.”

Okay, the sooner the better on job creation, sure. I’m with you there, Senator.

But we’re going to need those new jobs in six months or a year, too, unless you’ve got a magic wand to wave. This economic catastrophe isn’t going away any time soon. Long-term thinking is a good thing.

If you’ve got a stimulus idea that’ll generate jobs in a matter of weeks, I’m sure the Democrats would love to throw it in there! At least they would have last week, but you let that train leave the station – not them. You’ve got a phone, Senator. You get yourself involved.

Listen, I know you can’t wait for 12 months to pass so you can turn around and pretend the 2009 economy was all Obama’s fault. We all know it’s coming. Whatever, that’s politics. But in the meantime, stop whining and get to work!

If it takes several months to stimulate job growth (and it does), then we better get cracking now! It’s not like the Democrats deliberately left out projects that cause immediate job growth. They just didn’t limit themselves purely to short-term goals.

And thank goodness! There’s no way to dig our way out of George W. Bush’s mess(es) in just a few months. You know it, I know it.

But I’ll make you a deal… We’ll still let you blame Obama a year from now even if you don’t act totally worthless now.

I promise!