Ross McGowan Watch

Ross McGowan is back on the air today… which is good because this is called the Ross McGowan Watch and if he keeps taking 4 and 5 day weekends, well I face a dearth of things to write about.

Bill Beach from the Heritage Foundation is on talking about the efforts by President Obama to reach out to Republicans and the stimulus bill moving through Congress.

Beach correctly points out that Obama has been making significant efforts to reach across the aisle and that Speaker Pelosi is playing the “bad cop” with rather unfortunate results. McGowan adds that the bill is likely to pass with little, if any, Republican support… which undermines the whole premise of McGowan’s position that Pres. Obama has been getting “rave reviews” from Republicans. I would remind McGowan that it’s not enough to be liked on Capitol Hill, one also has to be effective.

McGowan shifts gears and points out that the stimulus bill is massive, at $825 million, and challenges Beach to rebut the notion that something this big would not be effective. First and foremost, the bill is now approaching $900 billion as everyone steps up to get a bite of it.

McGowan, and pretty much everyone else, was outraged to find that the CEOs of GM, Ford, and Chrysler flew in on corporate jets to ask for taxpayer money… but remained silent on the 600 private jets that flew in for the inauguration. Each one of those private jets represented someone who wants something from Washington and that’s why this stimulus bill is growing at an alarming rate.

Beach, the Heritage Foundation’s chief number cruncher, recalls the recession of 1979-81 and that Reagan’s business tax reductions resulted in significant recovery as a result of tax reductions, coupled with Volcker’s inflation fighting actions. Beach’s point is that this stimulus doesn’t have much in the way of structural incentives, it’s just more spending on top of already significant spending.

McGowan breaks from his normal stance of passively nodding in approval and challenges Beach. I guess I got lulled into a false sense of security from watching McGowan with the likes of Don Perata where silence is ratification of guest views.

McGowan claims the infrastructure as a “bold plan”and claims this is what is needed. What happened to the value of “smart decision making” rising in value on the Hill? McGowan seems to be suggesting that action irrespective of whether it’s good or not is the prescription.

Beach simply points out that actions are not lining up with talk. The stimulus bill doesn’t have what put forward by the President and that much of the money won’t into action, specifically pointing out that “shovel ready” projects are few.  According to CBO, less than 1/4 of the infrastructure project money will be spent in the current year and furthermore he questions the value of projects that include tree planting on the mall and buying new cameras for Hollywood (which goes back to that 600 jets point I raised earlier).

UPDATE: Here’s another take on the array of spending in the bill that Congress is debating today.

McGowan acknowledges that Beach makes good points while at the same time correcting Beach by saying the trees have been removed from the bill. Actually the trees are still in, they decided to tighten their belts and not re-sod the National Mall. They also took out funding for contraceptives but included $325 million for STD prevention… a proven economic stimulus if one ever existed, I guess.

I would further add that many of the so-called breakthroughs in this bill are winks-and-nods without the necessary support for action. For example, many have pointed out that this bill includes strengthening of provisions for whistleblowers, however without the passage of HR985 FEDERAL EMPLOYEE WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION RESTORATION ACT there is no funding for attorney representation of the person filing the whistleblower claim, meaning there is significant risk that forms a deterent for whistleblowers. This is classic Potomac Three Card Monty… watch what I’m doing over here.

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