Democracy Now! re: Econ Stimulus pkg

[katty]

EXCERPT: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/29/economic_stimulus_moves_to_senate_following

AMY GOODMAN: —about what you think needs to happen. What’s in this bill?

WILLIAM GREIDER: A lot of really good stuff that will be stimulative, just because it keeps—either keeps people working or it creates new jobs and begins—only begins, but begins—these deeper reform imperatives the country faces, like energy conservation and conversion, like ecological protection, expanding healthcare for people, especially at the bottom end of the income ladder. In any other season, Amy, it would be quite extraordinary to stand back and see what they’re doing. In our present circumstances, I have to say, it is probably not enough to—

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you’ve said it’s two or three times too small.

WILLIAM GREIDER: Yeah. I mean, you can measure what’s missing now in demand and business activity and lay it alongside this package, and this package looks way inadequate. I think the White House understands that, but they’re not going to triple it. What they are doing is starting a process that will at least, perhaps, slow the hemorrhage. That’s—I’m sure that’s their hope.

There are a bunch of obstacles that I think make it very difficult to get out of this ditch. One of them is scale, the scale of what kind of response you’re—another is the financial system, which, despite the hundreds of billions pumped into banks, is still essentially dysfunctional. And they’re now wrestling at the Treasury Department and the White House with, OK, how do we change the game that Henry Paulson and the Republicans played for six, nine months unsuccessfully?

AMY GOODMAN: And do you expect someone like Timothy Geithner, who—yesterday we had on Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who is opposed to his confirmation, saying he was part of this massive problem. Do you expect that he would be able to?

WILLIAM GREIDER: Well, I am among those who urged our new president not to appoint him for that very reason. And—

AMY GOODMAN: Did you talk to Obama about that?

WILLIAM GREIDER: No, no. I’m just—in the pages of The Nation—I’m not sure he’s a reader, but perhaps he will become a reader as things get worse. I’ve been writing for some months, the system is not just broken and not just injured; it is collapsed. And as long as the government continues to play putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, I think it will fail. That’s not an ideological statement. It’s just—I think it’s the reality.