Non-Global Thinking

Ed Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation, recently wrote an opinion piece in the Indianapolis Star entitled "A Sham 'Stimulus'". Feulner's main basis for attacking the Obama administration's proposed stimulus package is because of what he deems "wasteful" spending on items such as $650 million for digital TV coupons, $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $140 billion for education, and $140 million to study the atmosphere.

I take issue with Feulner's logic. By simplistically labeling the above as “waste,” he jumps to conclusions, determining that “none of these proposals would create jobs or boost our economy.”

More specifically though, I take issue with Feulner’s inclusion of using $140 million to study the atmosphere as automatically wasteful spending. This $140 million is actually part of $600 million going to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and is specifically targeted for climate data modeling. In my opinion, such an allocation is far from wasteful. It is in fact prudent. Especially when it comes to tackling climate change through clean energy research, the United States has thus far (and especially through the George W. Bush administration) made embarrassingly little progress on scientific R&D funding and initiatives. Sure, R&D might not provide the immediate relief that Feulner is perhaps calling for, but true economic progress (and recovery) will take innovation. Innovation requires R&D funding. Attaching such funding to this stimulus is a first step in our government attempting to tackle a global issue that both contributes to and transcends our current economic woes.

Far from wasteful, this particular allocation is demonstrative of the long-range, globally strategic thinking that I believe must be embraced, especially now. While the atmospheric program, like some of the others, might not be putting money directly into people’s pockets, Mr. Feulner should perhaps realize that prudent long-range investing is never a bad thing, especially when it comes to impending global dilemmas.

Well said. The core idea of

Submitted by on Fri, 02/06/2009 - 11:45am.

Well said. The core idea of the stimulus is to use fiscal policy to rev the economy when monetary policy can no longer help because it's hit the lower interest bound. We've got to spend a lot of money to do that. However, it's hard to productively spend that much money at once, there's diminishing returns as projects take a while to ramp up administratively and in some cases more study is needed before the money can do much good.

As a result, we're going to be spending on a whole wide range of projects if we want to spend the money effectively. Long range investments involving short term spending are just the thing to help. Your piece does a great job for explaining why that research is worth doing and thus a good recipient of some of the overall economic recovery money.