Sliding Economy Demands More Action, Not Less

The Washington Post had an interesting lead sentence for its coverage of the White House health care summit: [1] "...President Obama yesterday reiterated his pledge to enact comprehensive legislation this year, an ambitious undertaking many say is further complicated by the nation's dismal economy."

Interesting, in that no one in the story said passing health care reform is further complicated by the nation's dismal story.

Because the bad economy does not make it harder to pass health care form. The bad economy makes it more urgent to pass health care reform.

The latest shock to the economy [2] is that the unemployment rate has leaped from 7.6% to 8.1% in a month, as 4,4 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in Dec. 2007.

Meanwhile, health care costs have been squeezing business so much that fewer and fewer even offer coverage [3]. And as the President himself mentioned yesterday, the high health costs in America give businesses reason to outsource jobs to countries with universal health care. [4] General Motors, in particular, has been absolutely crushed by health care costs. [5] Its CEO has said that a national program like other nations have would "undoubtedly would help level the playing field for the industry."

Solving the health care problem, relieves downward pressure on the economy. It is part of the solution. Today's numbers only increase the demand for action.

Beyond health care, today's disturbing economic news should spur action for additional stimulus, to ensure that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will not end up too small for the massive challenge we face.

Yet some Senators -- mostly Republicans but some Democrats -- are holding up action on the fiscal year 2009 appropriations bill [6], which would add a little extra stimulus by increasing public investment, with nonsensical complaints about overspending.

If you are concerned about our long-run debt, trimming a few billion in federal spending for one year will do absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, we need every public dollar possible to be pumped into our economy while the private sector is retrenching, if we are to mitigate the pain of recession. This is literally penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Today's economic numbers demand more action, not inaction. Don't let the pundits and so-called "moderates" tell you otherwise.