LETTER: Support the president’s stimulus plan

President Obama’s economic stimulus plan is a very, very good bill. As The Nation writes, “If enacted, the economic revovery plan will be one of the biggest and boldest pieces of legislation in the past forty years.”

Here are some facts about what the bill really does: creates or saves three to four million jobs in the next two years, averts “literally hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs” — and doubles funding for the Department of Education, creates 500,000 green jobs and doubles our clean energy production, immediately helps unemployed folks get affordable health insurance.

Some folks are arguing that it should be bigger, and they’re probably right, but this is the best down payment on economic recovery we have seen, and it needs to be passed.

The stuff that’s being singled out for criticism amounts to a tiny faction of the bill — like anti-smoking programs that make up less than one-ten-thousandth of the spending. They would have you believe that this is the centerpiece of the bill. It is not. This kind of nit-picking is pure politics.

If it doesn’t pass, we’re in deep trouble. Even John McCain’s economic adviser estimates that without the stimulus, unemployment would top 11 percent by 2010, the highest level since the Great Depression.

Last week alone, 100,000 people lost their jobs in this country. So we need to make sure the Senate takes action quickly. Nearly 200 economists from across the political spectrum wrote to Congress, agreeing: “We do not have the luxury of a lengthy debate over the best course of action. This legislation may not be enough to solve all the economy’s problems, but it is urgently needed and an important step in the right direction.”

But with so much rhetoric and demagoguery surrounding the bill, it won’t pass unless we can get the real facts out to a wide audience.
Call your senator in Washington, D.C., and ask him to support the economic stimulus plan.

“Those who fail to act are doomed to failure.”

Sincerely,

Victor Johnson

Danielsville