Weekly Column:   –  “Our country is facing some grave economic challenges, and a lot of skilled American workers are out of work.  Their families are struggling during a difficult time, and we have an obligation to be sure the programs in place to help Americans get through temporary periods of unemployment are there when these families need them.

Last week Congress approved a $789 billion measure to stimulate the American economy.  I spent the week reading drafts of the legislation, researching programs and talking to experts about the competing priorities in the bill.  Like any legislation that covers so much territory with so many dollars, there are positive things in it and negative ones. 

In the end, I cast my vote against the bill.  It just has too much spending that is not focused on the task at hand: turning our economy around and getting America back to the hard work, innovation and entrepreneurship we do best. 

I strongly believe the expenditure of taxpayers’ dollars should be strategic.  The funds should go to the people and places with the greatest potential to create jobs and to improve our economy. 

Of course, we have to help the families who have been hurt by recent job losses.  Unemployment insurance, extension of health care benefits for families that have little to fall back on, and nutrition assistance are all important, and they have their place in this effort.  The other prong in our attack on the economic slowdown should focus on strengthening the infrastructure which underpins our entire economy – roads, bridges, waterways, energy and information technology.

If we could have constructed a bill that focused only on those immediate priorities, it would have won overwhelming support from elected officials on both sides of the aisle as well as the American public. 

And how much would such a bill cost?  I’m glad you asked.  I’m pretty sure we could do it for $160 billion.

This is still a lot of money and a lot of public spending, to be sure.  Given another few weeks, I’m confident we could trim the bill down even more.  But giving it a $600 billion haircut is a pretty good start in my book.

$160 billion would cover all of the transportation infrastructure in the current bill and takes a significant bite out of the waiting improvements to our waterways and rail infrastructure – some of the cleanest and cheapest ways of getting Southern Missouri goods to their domestic and foreign markets.  Furthermore, I’ve included funds from the bigger bill for energy: loan guarantees, state and local government energy grants, a more robust and reliable national electricity grid, renewable energy research and development, and fossil energy recovery totaling a little less than $22 billion.  School construction in my ideal bill would get $16 billion, and job training programs would be boosted by $16 billion.  Also, it’s important to be sure rural areas are not left out of the equation, so to balance out the concentration of mass transit construction projects that would primarily benefit urban areas, I would put about $6 billion of emergency funding into USDA Rural Development programs.

Two other things I would do with this bill:  First, insist on the public reporting of every dollar spent.  We deserve to know when and how states are spending this federal money so we can encourage them to spend it quickly and wisely.  Second, Congress is set to take up a new transportation bill later this year worth $400 to $500 billion over six years.  We should start that process right now so we make the most of the momentum created by the stimulus bill. 

Do all of these things, and the American people could be proud to support a significantly trimmed bill like the one I proposed instead of the behemoth we ended up with.  Instead of it, we would have a stimulus that matters.”