Bill Manzi.com

As President Obama travels to Florida tommorow to pitch the economoic stimulus package he will be introduced at a town hall style meeting by Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Republican. Crist issued a statement:

“Florida has taken prudent steps to cut taxes for our people and balance our budget in these increasingly difficult times. Any attempts at federal stimulus must prioritize job creation and targeted tax relief for small business owners. I am eager to welcome President Obama to the Sunshine State as he continues to work hard to reignite the US economy.”

Crist has been an outspoken supporter of the federal stimulus bill, joining other Republican Governor’s in pushing for federal relief. I wonder if a couple of Republican Governor’s who have said they are not in favor will turn down the federal assistance if this bill passes. Any takers on that one? Sanford of South Carolina ans Barbour of Mississippi come to mind.

New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has weighed in on his blog this morning on the Senate version of the stimulus. He takes dead aim at the “centrist” compromise that would tear out aid to states and seems to take some perverse pride in attacking aid to education. From Krugman:

The short answer: to appease the centrists, a plan that was already too small and too focused on ineffective tax cuts has been made significantly smaller, and even more focused on tax cuts.

According to the CBO’s estimates, we’re facing an output shortfall of almost 14% of GDP over the next two years, or around $2 trillion. Others, such as Goldman Sachs, are even more pessimistic. So the original $800 billion plan was too small, especially because a substantial share consisted of tax cuts that probably would have added little to demand. The plan should have been at least 50% larger.

Now the centrists have shaved off $86 billion in spending — much of it among the most effective and most needed parts of the plan. In particular, aid to state governments, which are in desperate straits, is both fast — because it prevents spending cuts rather than having to start up new projects — and effective, because it would in fact be spent; plus state and local governments are cutting back on essentials, so the social value of this spending would be high. But in the name of mighty centrism, $40 billion of that aid has been cut out.

My first cut says that the changes to the Senate bill will ensure that we have at least 600,000 fewer Americans employed over the next two years.

We had Michael Steele, the new Chair of the RNC, on the air with George Stephanopoulos, saying that Republicans do not support job creation through any stimulus package because these jobs, like construction jobs to build schools, would be “temporary”, and would not have been created by the private sector. When Stephanopoulos pointed out that the private sector has shed millions of jobs recently Steele seemed confused.

The roundtable on “This Week” had George Will pointing out something that we should all start embracing. He said that there are differences between the Parties, and that Republicans ought not to be expected to agree with Democrats, but to offer their own ideas. If Michael Steele is doing that offering then Democrats ought to be highlighting Steele’s prescription for the economy, which is to leave people out of work until the private sector gets around to hiring them. Spend money to fix roads, bridges, and schools? Nope. Those construction jobs would only be “temporary”. The Republicans could be the best sales force Barack Obama has for this package. Democrats ought to be on the air in Ohio and Florida right now, driving home the Republicans desire to leave people out of work. Just putting Steele’s words out there should be enough to create a firestorm.