Last night’s pleas from President Obama for Congress and the public to support the proposed $838-billion economic stimulus package had no effect on Senator Chuck Grassley. The Iowa Republican says he’s voting against the massive bailout. While the package might be able to create more than three-million jobs, Grassley says each of those jobs would essentially cost 300-thousand dollars.
Grassley says, "It didn’t contain enough initiatives to encourage investment, risk-taking entrepreneurship and the kind of activity that gets people to work today and keeps them working for the long haul, particularly, not enough help for small business where 80% of the new jobs are created." He says the stimulus bill was managed in a heavily partisan way by congressional leaders, a way that shut down collaboration.
Grassley says his office has received thousands of calls from Iowans who oppose the legislation, fearing it will not get the economy back on track. "I hope that the next major efforts start in a way that avoids political machine-type outcomes and yields really a common-sense product that the public can support," Grassley says.
He says Iowans’ cynicism is being fueled by the package’s massive government spending and long-term entitlement commitments that will leave the next generation with trillion-dollar deficits. The Senate is expected to vote on the package this afternoon.