So I voted for Obama not because of his economic views, but because of Sarah Palin’s political views. As a result, I see myself disagreeing with a lot of Obama’s economic plans. Let’s look at the ‘key points’ of Obama’s plan one by one.
Expand Medicaid: $87bn
How does expanding Medicaid help the economy? Alright, so lets say that more people can go to see the doctor for a lower cost. That means they’ll have more money to spend on other stuff. However, this targets the poor elderly, children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities instead of the majority of the economy. Besides, the health care sector is doing much better than most other areas.
Help state governments: $79bn
I guess this might be helpful, but it all depends on how that money is spent. I mean if we’re pouring money into wasteful construction jobs for the sole purpose of giving construction workers a job, then that’s just idiotic. But if money was put into consumer subsidies for solar panels or public transportation improvement, I think the long run benefits would be pretty damn good.
Help school districts: $41bn
This should be helpful. In the short run, people who have been laid off from their jobs can become teachers at adult schools and community colleges while those who have teaching credentials can go in and work in the K-12 public school systems. Maybe they’ll find that they like teaching and some great new teachers would be found to inspire inner city youth into learning calculus and going to college to earn their degree in ethnic studies. In the long run, better education would increase the number of skilled workers and while this would lower wages of such labor due to competition, should increase efficiency and American competitiveness. Oh, and better educated people generally commit fewer crimes and know how to take care of themselves better, thus reducing the strain on law enforcement and health care.
Higher unemployment benefits: $36bn
This is just awful. Ok, I know that they’re thinking that there’s lots of unemployed people out there and that benefits would give them money to spend. But hey, that money would be much better off put into plans to create new jobs. The reason why unemployment is so high in many European countries is because people would rather be unemployed than employed due to high benefits. Keep unemployment benefits low and lower the amount of time that one can receive it. This way, people would be encouraged to compete for jobs and competition is a wonderful thing.
Rebuild roads: $30bn
Most places in America don’t really need new roads. I mean you build a road in Western China from a major city to an outlying town and that would probably increase efficiency by quite a bit, but come on, we got roads all over the place here. A pothole here and there is not going to hurt the economy all that much. I say focusing on improving and encouraging public transportation would be better. Especially in times of economic tightening, more people would probably be more willing to take the bus or train, so why not use government money to lower the price and improve its services? Hell, maybe those people who switched to public transportation would like it so much that they won’t go back to cars even after the recession.
Computerise medical records: $20bn
… huh… I don’t get it…
Green electricity grid: $11bn
I think this is a great idea. Not only would creating new solar power plants and wind turbines be good for the environment, but it’ll create new jobs in a sector that should grow in popularity as other energy costs go up. I don’t like bio fuels though. Oh, and why don’t we use some money to put telephone poles and all those wires underground? That way we can let those trees in front of our houses grow up as big as we want.
Next time, I’ll go over what the Chinese government should spend their giant aid package on.
