Excellent points made by all who oppose the stimulus. The PR campaign that the stimulus is "working" has all ready started in the media, showing the bridge and road projects under way. Just remember that all these projects are being paid for on massive borrowing by the treasury, and the FOMC increasing the $$$ supply. Won't be to long that China and Japan will own us, as they are the ones primarily buying the treasury bills to finance this nonsense. While the huge increase in the $$$ supply is likely to create a massive stagflation problem when all the $$$ that the FOMC has pumped into the system ($$$ that is being hoarded now), starts to come out of the woodwork down the road.
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It is setting up for the mother of all economic collapses, but hey; at least we'll have nice roads and bridges to drive on!

Dr. Talk, Congress allotted less money EVERY year than Reagan asked for, it could have been worse!

just more of each side blaming the other. Last I looked both parties are running up huge debt. What ever happened to fiscal responsibility? Both parties preach it, but neither ever delivers.

Joker, I agree there's blame enough to go around, but the primary blame clearly belongs to the people who were in charge, namely the Republicans. Your attempt to establish an equivalency regarding blame is what proves to be the undoing of your credibility.

okay it needs to be said "slowdown". Sorry beef.

Gandalf and proartist, you are showing your ignorance with your comments. Give me one ounce of proof that the current state of our economy is ALL of the Republicans fault. Yes, they are to blame but so are the Democrats and yes, including Clinton. There are plenty of people to blame for this mess. But you are foolish to think you can pin it all on Bush and the Republicans. Grow up and admit that both Democrats and Republicans are to blame for this. Hopefully, they can both fix it.

Gandalf, you have a lot of nerve to question my credibility. Like most liberals, you go on the attack and go negative. What points that I have made lack credibility?

Gandalf, you wrote "since the stimulus is geared to save our economy from imploding into a true depression". The measure of a depression is declining GDP. Wealth creation simply means a rising GDP, everyone having a better quality of life. Government spending doesn't raise our GDP, including this trillion dollar+ (with interest) spending bill. It will, however, put a mountain a debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren. BTW, I didn't vote for McCain.

proartist,
It wasn't the tax cuts of the Reagan administration that was the problem. It was Congress's spending. The people and government can't be spending at the same time. Either the people become poorer while the government spends money for us, or the government curbs it's spending while we spend more. Which do you prefer? I prefer a limited government that only spends money on things they are supposed to (e.g. military) while hard working Americans get to keep more of what they earn.
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Also, Clinton did not leave Bush with a surplus.
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16

Joker, if you're trying to establish some sort of moral equivalence between the Democrats and Republicans regarding our economic mess, you're way off the target of credibility! There is no doubt that our current economic crisis was fostered by the incompetent Republican leadership of the near recent past. And no, I'm not in favor of the Milwaukee St. tunnel or the Children's Museum. However, I am all for better foreign language skills to be taught in school.

lovemycountry, the purpose of the stimulus plan is not to create wealth, but to keep people in jobs while also completing some long overdue basic infrastructure projects. I wish Republicans would see that there's more to life than just creating wealth!

Simply mind-boggling how some want to always blame a past President who not only balanced the federal budget but left office with a SURPLUS! And, that in spite of the legacy he'd inherited - the (at that time) highest deficit in history created by "tickle-down economics", "stimulus" tax cuts only for the wealthy and ill-inspired "deregulating" by the Reagan administration.

Gandalf, the blame for our economic problems is not due to just the Republicans. Democrats are to blame too going all the way back to Bill Clinton.

According to your logic, we should spend all kinds of money even though they are not helping with jobs. Wake up, everyone and every city has needs and wants. But the reality is, you can't always get what you want!

I am sure you are in favor of the children's museum, multiple language classes in the schools, a tunnel under Milwaukee Road and all of the other lame brain ideas floating around our city!

Gandalf, it's economically impossible for this spending bill to help America. Government spending does not create wealth in the U.S., it moves it from you and me, the tax payer, to government vendors and their employees. In this process, zero wealth is created to help save the U.S. Neither Bush nor Obama have the wisdom and courage to tell the public they need to stop the spending.

rooster, your comment makes no sense, since the stimulus is geared to save our economy from imploding into a true depression, an unfortunate course that was perpetrated by the past incompetent Republican leadership in the White House and Congress. The infrastructure projects, especially road and bridge maintenance, are all negligently overdue and have long term benefits well beyond the immediate need for jobs.

BEHOLDING TO THE FEDS FOREVER. its part of the scam. the feds and obama and his left wing cronies are buying the country one trillion dollars at a time.

By spending money in the construction industry, the stimulus will certainly keep people in that industry employed, who can then keep paying for their homes and cars and buy stuff at stores. At the same time, the taxpayers get an investment that will in future support economic activity in their region.
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The stimulus concentrates on construction and infrastructure partly because of the investment factor, and partly because that's a hard-hit sector, but mainly because construction and infrastructure is something the government DOES. I'm not sure how else they're supposed to spend money, actually. Buy groceries? A price support or artificial scarcity is not actually going to solve the aggregate demand problem for the (global) economy, and may exacerbate it in the long run.

Interesting comment from Mr. Fisher. "If they're sitting home...they're not paying taxes." So we take tax money to finance projects so that we can employ people so that they will pay taxes?

Look at Doyle the lapdog go with the Obama talk. "By Doyle's estimate, the infusion of federal cash will create or save about 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin". How do normal no political economists count jobs saved?

How many unemployed people will actually find work building these roads? I am sure that some of the road and bridge construction fat cats will get all the contracts and jobs. They have been in the pockets of Gov. Thompson and Doyle for years. Yes, even some of our local road construction companies are bosom buddies with Madison.

I only hope that the companies that get the contracts to do these jobs do not use or hire illegals.