“Jeffrey D. Sachs, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia — considered one of the world’s foremost economists and a leading advocate of “shock therapy” as applied to former Eastern bloc countries — said that “comparing the House and Senate versions, the Senate version is clearly worse: more tax cuts, less infrastructure, and less in transfers to state and local governments.” Instead, Sachs said, “Immediate and sizable spending increases in the stimulus package should be directed to a few areas: significant support for our crisis-ridden state and local governments [just what got cut in the Senate], especially for health (Medicaid), education, and other urgent public services; income support (unemployment, anti-poverty including food stamps and child nutrition); health care coverage for the uninsured (as well as adequate Medicaid funding mentioned earlier); and a significant multi-year rollout of infrastructure of all sorts (roads, rail, other mass transit, ports, water, energy, broadband, etc.).”

University of Texas economist James Galbraith was more outspoken: “The behavior of the so-called bipartisan group has been outrageous. On the economics, they are pretending to know things they can’t possibly know: specifically, (a) how deep and serious the crisis actually is, and (b) what is ’stimulus’ and what is not. The reality is, professional economists have no clear idea how bad things can get….. The cutbacks to state aid have every potential of being disastrous. What they really reflect is the indifference of people who represent places like Nebraska and Maine to what goes on in New York or California.”

Stimulus Cuts Disastrous

This is what 30 years of faith based governance brings - enormous decisions made on the basis of belief and faith, regardless of what actual facts and knowledge say. As with global warming deniers the government relevant deniers keep repeating their talking points, trusting in the news to bang their drums and the gullible to pick up the beat and march in lockstep — off into more calamity….