Paul Krugman has some ideas for beefing up the stimulus discussions that are worth a read. He concludes:

…my advice to the Obama team is to scrap the business tax cuts, and, more important, to deal with the threat of doing too little by doing more. And the way to do more is to stop talking about jump-starts and look more broadly at the possibilities for government investment.

I’ve hit this the last few days talking about child poverty issues (Part I and Part II) and child nutrition (Part I and Part II). Especially when coupled with investment in early childhood education and other investments in human infrastructure, it could make a huge long-term dent in several fiscally expensive problems, including reducing expenses for incarceration and judicial services.

Get at the root core rather than scratch the surface, so to speak.

Last night, 60 Minutes had an infuriating report on oil commodities gaming and the deregulation that has enabled legalized thievery.

They didn’t go into substantial detail on the deregulation push (never mentioning Phil Gramm, for example). But they hit enough on how easily the market can be gamed by high-level traders who take advantage of these deregulated loopholes that regular folks could get a good sense of how they got screwed while CEOs and hedge fund giants walked away with millions more in their pockets.

Of course, folks like Phil Gramm — who also pushed deregulation of mortgage markets leading to the subprime fiasco — still think that regulations and oversight are the devil’s handmaiden.

“There is this idea afloat that if you had more regulation you would have fewer mistakes,” he said. “I don’t see any evidence in our history or anybody else’s to substantiate it.” He added, “The markets have worked better than you might have thought.”

Gramm wasn’t alone in pushing this through. Politicians from both sides of the aisle, including a lot of folks who went on to work for the very financial institutions which were helped by this deregulation, gave him plenty of legislative help and political cover. Cozy.

And what did the rest of us get?

– Job Fair Expands Face Of Unemployment

– Options for Health Insurance If You Lose Your Job

– Children In Need: Schools Hear Cry For Help

– Program Supports Families On Road To Self-Sufficiency

– Need Is Growing For Food Stamps

– Black Men Hardest Hit By Joblessness in US

– The Price Of Packing Schools With Poverty

– Number Of Homeless Families Climbing Due To Recession

– Why Is US Unemployment Rising?

At a time when bailout monies have already been spent on enhancing CEO pay packages at bailed-out banks, isn’t it high time members of Congress stopped lining the pockets of the greedy and, instead, started looking at some real infrastructure and investment in the rest of us? Or are they going to join in the WSJ chorus of blaming HGTV for giving us high expectations, and instead work to keep us in our place?

How about we try being smart about where we invest the public’s money for a change? Or is that too much to ask?


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  4. Sesame Street: Tackling Tough Economic Times Together
  5. NYT, AHIP and Those Greedy Doctors: Part II