Let's hope stimulus bill works

Inter Lake editorial

Congress has gone and done it.

The president's economic stimulus bill, with a final price tag of $787 billion, has been passed.

Now we have to hope that it will indeed provide some form of jump start for the economy. And we in Montana have to hope that our congressional delegation, including the powerful Sen. Max Baucus, will be effective in steering a good share of stimulus funding toward wise and useful purposes that will generate jobs here at home.

We have to hope also that its tax cut provisions will provide some rapid economic response, because as much as half of the spending is not expected to hit the ground for at least two years.

We have to cross our fingers and hope it works. A lot of people are counting on it.

On the other hand, we the people also have to begin looking over the work of our representatives to see if they have lived up to our trust. They need to be held accountable for their words and their votes about the stimulus package.

For instance, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told everyone, "There are no earmarks or pet projects' in the bill. But everybody knows that's simply not the case. Sure, it once involved $819 billion in spending and tax cut provisions, and has since been whittled down to $790 billion. But it was 700 pages last week and has since mushroomed into nearly 1,000 pages festooned with so much spending that even those in Congress cannot possibly grasp it all. And whether it was approved through the shortcut of earmarks or not is irrelevant; it is certainly full of pet projects, and it certainly didn't receive much scrutiny prior to being passed.

"I don't think anyone will have the chance" to read the entire bill before voting on it, admitted Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey.

That is the most disturbing part of this legislative sausage making. The bill that's ostensibly intended to stimulate the economy will keep on revealing things like $198 million in payments to Filipino World War II veterans; $300 million for the government to purchase neighborhood electric vehicles; $300 million for energy efficient appliance rebates; $65 million for digital TV coupons; $2 billion for neighborhood stabilization programs; and on and on and on.

With no hearings or debate or public awareness, the bill includes provisions to lay the groundwork for expanding the federal government's role in health care. There are also provisions that could undermine welfare reforms passed by the Clinton administration.

And there is the certainty that the bill's expanded government spending will set new "baselines' for future government spending increases.

The Democrats and President Obama are convinced that this bill is necessary and appropriate. It is certainly earth-shaking, but only time will tell if it plowed us out of a mess or buried us deeper than ever.

Like we said, keep your fingers crossed.