Obama Economic Stimulus Offers Too Much Waste, Not Enough Job Creation

Mort Zuckerman

Now there is a new danger—to wit, that the stimulus program will not be adequately effective to make up for collapsing consumer demand. If the economy fails to recover and unemployment soars to double digits, the Obama administration will not be able to put all the blame on the Bush administration but will then have to bear its own share. So a flawed stimulus that is inadequate to the problem raises great political risk for the Obama administration as it faces difficult decisions down the road.

The main test of the stimulus package should be the largest number of jobs that could be created in the shortest period of time. Maybe it's too late for us to be presented with a simple, clean program to plug the hole in the economy caused by the sharp drop-off in private-sector demand. Let's hope not, for the president himself warns that absent the right action, our "crisis" might develop into a "catastrophe."