Thursday, January 08, 2009

Boehner, Cantor, and the Stimulus   [Rich Lowry]

My understanding is that Boehner has tasked Cantor with pulling together alternative ideas to Obama's stimulus. In sheer political terms, my advice would be to keep it simple. For the purposes of the debate over this bill, it's better to come up with one or two big ideas than 10 smaller ones. The place to start is probably with a cut in or holiday from the payroll tax—a tax on working people and on employment (see John Makin on this, although many others have written in favor of it recently). Politically, Republicans have to support some sort of stimulus, but they should paint in bold, easy-to-understand colors in their contrast with Obama, who wants to suck them into supporting his bill as a political cover against its perceived or actual failure.

01/08 06:00 PMShare