To Stimulate or Not to Stimulate?

To Stimulate or Not to Stimulate?

That is the question for Republican governors. Whether they should be a populist and spread out the manna from DC, or to take a stand, no matter how politically ill-advised, and refuse these tainted funds.

Now, neither I nor the President and his advisors, nor most economists have any real idea of how to get the economy out of this nose dive. How low will it go? But, the President has chosen action over inaction.

When unemployment hits 10% and multitudes of the former middle class have lost their homes, woe to any governor who “stood her/his ground” and refused the stimulus funding.

Even our former Gov. of Mass. Michael Dukakis, a man didn’t know how to say no to federal aid, once refused federal highway funding for low priority improvements (as a transportation engineer, I agreed it wasn’t something that was not really needed). But, he had to quickly make a 180 and agree to taking the funds.

I don’t know if the stimulus will do anything long-term for the economy.

But I’ll bet that governors who refuse the stimulus will have a short political life, especially with double-digit unemployment!