State Aid Economic Stimulus “Clearly Works”

December 03, 2008

During the roundtable segment on ABC’s This Week on November 23rd, the discussion turned to economic stimulus and what action the federal government needs to take to turn things around. Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks insisted that investing in infrastructure would take too long to get off the ground and would not produce short-term results. Robert Kuttner, co-founder of The American Prospect and author of the book “Obama’s Challenge,” disagreed. Kuttner argued that while it may take some time before new jobs are added to our economy, it would take much less time than Brooks claimed – and, more importantly, the government can act right now to protect existing jobs by sending relief to state and local governments:

“Right now, state and local governments are laying off people, they’re deferring projects, they’re cutting health and education. If the government cuts a check to state and local governments to the tune of $100-150 billion dollars, not one of those layoffs have to occur.”

Brooks agreed.

“We can agree on state aid, I do agree on that. The things we know work: state aid works, food stamps works, extending unemployment – which they’ve done – that works. That clearly works to stimulate the economy.”

Watch the clip: