The privatization of public works; Obama’s 2009 “American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”
I’ve been waiting patiently for more information to be released on Obama’s 2009 stimulus plan- other than a dollar figure and some platitudes– and got a a little taste from the Washington Post- an op-ed from Larry Summers about the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”
This brief piece of writing didn’t do much to avail my ravenous interest, but it does give some buried clues as to the guiding principle that the plan will have.
The most important part of the piece was the clear idea being presented that this isn’t going to be package whose planning, execution, and oversight is going to reside within the realm of government — to quote Mr. Summers; ”The Obama plan represents not new public works but, rather, investments that will work for the American public.”
That kind of language is code for privatized stimulus– the govt is going to hand no-bid contracts out to its best-of-friends, and when it comes time to account for how the money got spent, there are going to be question marks over everyone’s heads. This could be the domestic stimulus version of the Iraq reconstruction- the govt takes your tax dollars, and writes checks to private companies to do as they see fit. [This is confirmed with another Summers quote; "more than 80 percent of these 3 million jobs will be in the private sector"]
During FDR’s presidency, lots of tax dollars went into lots of stimulus and public works projects… and lots of them didn’t work. Since the programs were government run, public discourse could change their direction, even to the point of cancelling them. In a privatized stimulus package, the taxpayer money all gets spent up front, and you just have to hope that these for-profit corporations have the best interests of the entire country in mind.
Those kinds of hopes have worked pretty well so far, haven’t they?
You should check out this NYT Op-Ed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04lewiseinhorn.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=opinion
They’ve cut all that infrastructure stuff to like less than a fifth of the stimulus plan at this point anyway, in favor of fucking tax-cuts. As I posted in the other thread:
“And we haven’t even gone into the ridiculous tax cut-centric stimulus package. Larry fucking Summers and his dislike of infrastructure…there is a disconnect between Obama and his economic team right now that really needs to be explored and fixed. There is this fear of the idea of infrastructure spending, almost as if the idea of “spending” just means giving out money and getting nothing. Ridiculous. The republican fondness for tax cuts as a means of stimulating the economy does not have to be indulged at this point, there is nothing to support its merits. There is no reason to try to appease them to this extent…but Summers and his people essentially agree with the republicans on how to boost the economy, so Obama is being advised that way. You were definitely right about the economic team, or about some of them at least.”
But yes, I also agree that privatizing those public works is a mistake…although replacing them with tax-cuts is just ridiculous to me.