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By Rep. Virginia Foxx

GUEST COLUMNIST

Published: February 18, 2009

"We are spending more [money] than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."

Surprisingly, this statement is not one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's criticisms of the Bush years. Instead, it's from Henry Morgenthau, secretary of the Treasury for 11 years under Franklin D. Roosevelt more than 70 years ago.

Morgenthau, given the task of financing and carrying out many of Roosevelt's Depression-era spending programs, made these remarks while testifying before Congress in 1939 -- at the tail end of the New Deal programs that had been started in 1933 when FDR was first elected.

Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau testifies before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Today the New Deal is back -- Morgenthau's candid comments about government spending notwithstanding. We all know the "new" New Deal by a less appealing title, the stimulus package.

We are in a recession, millions of Americans are hurting, either jobless, facing foreclosure or on the precipice of personal financial disaster. The solution to our economic downturn is not to stand by with fingers crossed hoping that everything will sort itself out. That is not an option for our nation. Congress must act now.

But the people who peddled the so-called stimulus would have Americans believe that Republicans like me who opposed the stimulus are only in favor of doing nothing.

In fact, The Washington Post reported that during his news conference last week, President Obama said, "There seems to be a set of folks who -- I don't doubt their sincerity -- who just believe that we should do nothing."

With all due respect, that is nonsense.

The Post continued, noting "in truth, few of those involved in the stimulus debate are suggesting that the government should not take action to aid the cratering economy. Many of the president's fiercest congressional critics support a stimulus package of similar size but think it should be built around a much higher proportion of tax cuts than new spending."

Exactly. I understand that people are hurting, and want to take steps to address our economic problems. I simply want those steps to be the right ones.

There are some good things in the stimulus bill and plenty of bad things. Unfortunately, the bad far outweigh the good.

The bill was sold as a "stimulus" package. But close examination reveals its true colors. From stem to stern, this bill was honeycombed with goodies that simply do not create jobs or spur economic growth.

It has money for electric golf carts ($300 million), cash for flu preparedness ($900 million) and money for following up on the 2010 census ($1 billion). It's not clear how many, if any, jobs these provisions create.

The stimulus also contains $1 billion for airport baggage-screening equipment. You know what? I don't oppose buying the necessary equipment to screen baggage at airports. But I do oppose putting money in this package that will not quickly and efficiently get people back to work and give our economy a real boost.

A company that makes baggage-screening equipment told the Wall Street Journal that if the $1 billion for airport baggage-screening equipment came its way it would create 185 jobs.

One hundred eighty-five new jobs sounds like a great idea. But parse the numbers and that comes out to $5.4 million per job created. That's not an efficient way to simulate the economy.

The average annual wage in the Winston-Salem area is about $40,000, which means we could hire a typical Winston-Salem area worker for 135 years on the amount that would be spent to create one of these baggage-screening equipment jobs.

We can spend taxpayer money better than that.

For the past few weeks I pushed a plan that creates jobs through targeted tax cuts for entrepreneurs (the people who create jobs in America), families and the unemployed (who currently pay taxes on their unemployment checks). Many of my colleagues have also called for a plan based more on tax cuts.

By using the research of Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, two of the Obama administration's top economic advisers, the Joint Tax Committee found that this tax cut-based plan will create 6.2 million jobs -- twice the amount touted by stimulus backers.

And the real kicker? It costs about half as much. I wouldn't call that "doing nothing."

¦ Rep. Virginia Foxx represents the 5th Congressional District of North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives. She serves on the House Committee on Rules.