Many Republicans, including Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, are questioning the wisdom of the job creation plan President Obama unveiled on Monday. Grassley says the common fear is that the proposal to spend more than 50-billion dollars on rebuilding roads, runways and railroads will only add to the already-massive national debt.
Grassley says, “If it’s anything like the stimulus bill of a year ago, and it sounds a little bit different, but if it’s the same principle as the stimulus bill of a year ago, no go.” He says it’s “too bad we lost the whole last year and a half” under the original stimulus plan, when we could have genuinely stimulated the economy and there was “a vacuum the government could fill.” Grassley says it appears President Obama has changed up the previous formula somewhat in the new proposal.
Grassley says, “With the emphasis upon roads and other infrastructure for transportation, it seems to me the president has learned a lesson from the last stimulus bill in the sense that then only three-percent of that $868-billion bill went into infrastructure.” He says only about one-half of one-percent of the massive stimulus package was pumped into small businesses, which Grassley says are responsible for creating 70-percent of the nation’s jobs.
“About half of it went into public employment,” Grassley says. “Everybody knows that government doesn’t create jobs, government consumes wealth. It doesn’t create wealth, so that’s why the stimulus bill of last year didn’t work.” Critics say even some Democrats in the U.S. House may be hesitant to support the Obama plan as it would raise federal spending by billions in the weeks prior to the election.