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DeMint’s ‘American Option’ Smart Alternative to Stimulus
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 6:10 PM
By: Ronald Kessler
The Democrats’ stimulus bill is a “sham” that could pass unless enough angry voters besiege Congress with calls and emails, Sen. Jim DeMint, chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, tells Newsmax.
Citing a new Gallup poll showing that three out of four Americans oppose the stimulus in its current form, the South Carolina Republican says Americans are beginning to understand what the stimulus bill is: a grab bag of spending measures that Democrats lusted after for years and that will do little to stimulate the economy.
“When people see bike trails and hiking trails and golf courses, they know this is not designed to stimulate the economy and create jobs,” DeMint says. “It’s just basically special-interest pork barrel spending. I think the real shame is when people here know that Americans are hurting, and people are losing jobs, and to use that as an excuse to spend money is really terrible.”
Appearing on MSNBC, ChuckTodd of NBC has cited private conversations with Democrats who “admit the Republicans have won the spin war here.” To counteract that, President Obama has gone on a media offensive, conducting interviews in the Oval Office with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX News.
But DeMint says the Democrats are being driven not by polls but by special or parochial interests. “No longer are politicians working for the good of the country,” he says.
As chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, DeMint heads the caucus of conservative senators that includes the majority of the Republican Conference. As an alternative to the stimulus bill, he has introduced legislation co-sponsored by Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, aimed at creating nearly 18 million jobs over the next 10 years by cutting taxes.
The measure — called the American Option — would cost almost as much as the $1.2 trillion bill passed by the House last week.
“The question here is not whether we do something, it’s how we do it,” DeMint says. “Essentially what we’re talking about is how do we put an extra trillion dollars in our economy for people to spend and businesses to use to hire people and buy capital equipment? There are two basic approaches to that. One is you take the money out of the private economy as the government, and then decide where you want it to go. That’s what we’re seeing from the Democrat bills in the House and the Senate. The other way to do it, which is more of a common-sense way, is consistent with free people and free markets. It’s just to leave the trillion dollars in the economy and not take it out through taxes.”
Obama met with the steering committee last week. He was open and listened, DeMint says.
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