GOP Talking Points on Economic Stimulus

The House Republican Caucus released a series of talking points on the stimulus package, which Dave Burris dutifully posted over at Delaware Politics. The document is not convincing. It includes this priceless piece of sophistry:

Deficit spending will not expand the economy. If that were true, then the current $1.2 trillion deficit — the largest in history — would already be rescuing the economy. $800 billion more will not change that.

Left out of that argument is the question of how we got to the largest deficit in history. Hundreds of billions spent on a six year war in a foreign country have not provided much economic benefit here at home. The Republicans in Congress might want to think twice before starting out the new term by referring to the past eight years.
Here's another underwhelming argument:

Trade groups state that every $1 billion in highway “stimulus” can be spent creating 34,779 new construction jobs. But Congress must first borrow that $1 billion out of the private sector. The private sector then loses or forgoes roughly the same number of jobs.

What the GOP caucus may have failed to notice is that the private sector is not creating jobs just now. We are losing half a million jobs every month. The stimulus package is needed precisely because the private sector is in such deep trouble.
The talking points also compare the multi-year cost of new jobs created with one year's wages—a cheap trick that Paul Krugman rightly slammed in his column on Sunday.
There are three objectives to keep in mind in reviewing the stimulus package: how fast the money hits the street, what assets are created by the spending, and whether other public policy objectives are supported by the bill. I'll be taking a closer look at these shortly. In the meanwhile, you might want to look over the Congressional Budget Office report on the bill; it's a good deal more enlightening that the GOP talking points.