THE OBSERVATION that "it
U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, the 7th District Republican who serves as House minority whip, is giving little reassurance that the GOP role will be anything but ideologically orthodox. As the House prepared to vote on an $825 billion economic-stimulus package, Mr. Cantor told USA Today that it is too heavy in spending and too light in tax cuts for small businesses and that, furthermore (quoting the newspaper's paraphrase), the "billions of dollars of aid to states included in the bill is [sic] tantamount to rewarding legislatures that increased spending beyond their means."
About the measure's spending-tax-cut ratio, reasonable people can disagree. But seven years of Bushian tax cuts, however beneficial, were manifestly insufficient to abort the current crisis. Republicans, having controlled Congress during that period, are out. Democrats, bearing the theories of John Maynard Keynes, are in. (See: vox populi.) The pertinent argument is not about economic philosophy, but electoral history. And speaking of history: Republicans during the decade themselves spent like cowhands on a Saturday night in Dodge. What the American Institute for Economic Research calls "welfare-state spending" jumped by 32 percent in constant dollars between the end of the Clinton years and 2007, notes AIER. And while much of the increase was driven by the demands of unreformed entitlement programs, this isn't true of the infamously proliferating pork-barrel earmarks of the era. How now the GOP reluctance to come across?
As to states being "rewarded" for their profligacy, 49 states must by law balance their budgets--thereby continually justifying their spending to taxpayers--which is untrue of Congress. Surely what has depleted most state coffers isn't a habit of using dollar bills for confetti but rather the severity of a sudden, revenue-draining downturn. In any case, now isn't the time to use statehouses to stage morality plays. This recession already has cost 2.5 million Americans their jobs, and there is very little hiring going on, which is partly why 4.6 million workers are receiving unemployment checks. Many economists forecast nearly a 9 percent jobless rate by early next year. States need money to pay mounting jobless benefits and perform their essential functions. Taking it from their citizens and businesses would further enrage the recessionary tiger. Republicans can play a useful role in, say, spotlighting foolish state projects. But if there was ever a time for the one important government entity that can deficit-spend--Washington--to do so, surely it is now. Mr. Cantor (though now penitent) overcame his scruples about spending to back the $700 billion TARP bailout of the avarice-stung financial industry. Americans being able to eat and stay in their homes is no less important.
These trying times can bind us as a people or split us into adversarial interests. We can embrace the common good or play Darwin's game. Monday, as the payrolls of Home Depot, Caterpillar, Sprint Nextel, and others were slashed, the baleful Spirit of 1933 chilled the land. The American Spirit-- the All-American Spirit--can overcome it.
Postscript
With a rub-your-eyes headline, The Free Lance-Star recently announced, "K.G. getting 335 jobs." Indeed, going against the economic grain, King George County has signed a contract with North Carolina-based grocery chain Harris Teeter to site a regional food depot in the county within the next four years. Estimated average annual wage for workers, excluding benefits: $38,000.
Three cheers for K.G. and for the Governor's Opportunity Fund, which helped seal the deal. Even in bad times, people buy food, which should make the operation a reliable job supplier for years to come. May construction start soon.