While this may be a poor time for optimistic talk, and honestly it isn't likely we could get it through with the current rabid tea party cult holding sway in Washington, I think the idea of a second stimulus should be brought up. Do we need another stimulus package? I think the answer is yes. It may be the only way to pull ourselves out of this pit.
First off, let me come out and say that it is my opinion that the first stimulus did in fact fail. It failed in the sense that it didn't stimulate the economy, it kept us from complete ruin but it left us in a coma and on life support.
Why did it fail?
It failed primarily because Obama changed the original plan of the stimulus package. The intention of the stimulus package was to be a grand New Deal styled public works bill, I believe the mantra of "shovel ready" comes to mind. A direct shot in the infrastructure and manufacturing of our economy that was and still is badly decayed. So what happened to the nearly trillion dollars of shovel ready programs?
Well it didn't go to shovel ready programs.
Overall, two-thirds of the stimulus program will go toward tax cuts, relief for state budgets and direct payments to the unemployed and others hurt by the recession, part of the administration's desire to provide immediate fiscal relief. Much smaller pieces of the pie will be allocated for weatherization, affordable housing and other projects designed to create jobs.
John Husing, a Southern California economist, said keeping teachers and police officers employed should help prevent the recession from getting worse. But he said the stimulus package would have improved communities' ability to grow over the long haul if it had dedicated more money to public works.
Source
The problem there, and as elsewhere cited in the article was that the stimulus was less a stimulus and more a life support program. It gave good cash injections to keep things alive but did little that would actually stimulate. The majority of the money for the stimulus ended up not going to the shovel ready projects and public works that the country desperately needed and still needs.
While the NYTimes says that at the time there were no infrastructure projects to spend on this runs smack up against the fact that the American Socitery of Civil Engineers has given our infrastructure a solid "D." I'd say here, the New York Times article is dead wrong, we not only had but still have much needed infrastructure and manufacturing work to do.
With interest rate spikes possibly looming, even the slight possibility of default, I know it seems an ill time to mention it but I think we have to do massive public works spending. The only way we can get out of this recession in one piece is to get another stimulus, a true stimulus that will be a bristling bill of shovel ready projects. By all means I don't mean to come off as saying that the first stimulus was a bad idea. It wasn't, in all honesty it kept the economic wasteland from becoming an apocalyptic hellscape (Though if the Tea Party sends us into default I guess we are going there anyway). I merely think that we need another stimulus, a true stimulus that will turn this economic wasteland into a more verdant and lively place.