It makes the least sense in a way as this AP story puts it
Among the most difficult cuts for the White House and its liberal allies to accept was the elimination of $40 billion in aid to states, money that economists say is an efficient way to pump up the economy by preventing layoffs, cuts in services or tax increases.
Tough times for libertarians like Ron Paul. But Mr Paul should realize that the giveaways in terms of tax cuts and bank bailouts have passed over the majority of the middle class, who have been seen more as a source of exploiting fees from over the past 20 years than building a breadth of strength in the economy.
Personally, I like to think as a pragmatist I'm not encumbered by ideology. And lately I'm buying into the idea of a changing nature of government involvement in the economy. Republicans and conservatives are fond of mentioning (and it sounds good) that "government never created a job". But really that's nonsense. Research, construction, defense ... in fact the government is one of the ways to most quickly create jobs and in times like these, when banks have frozen things up and consumers are tapped out, one of the best ways to do that across the broad economy.
So additional school buildings, or infrastructure improvements are on the chopping block in the Senate version of the bill. This is kind of the opposite of what's needed in my opinion. Energy, education and construction even broadband improvements are exactly what's needed. Our rich Chinese overlords realize this by the way and have slated about a trillion in infrastructure spending. Of course they are spending the money from savings and we are borrowing. But in bad times that's what we need to do. Unfortunately thanks to Bush we ran up huge deficits in good times.
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