LANSING – With new turmoil roiling the state and national economic waters, the need is greater than ever for Congress to enact a second-stage economic stimulus package that could include loans for American auto manufacturers, Governor Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Detroit) said Monday.
The two participated with U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in a teleconference on the proposal that Levin and Brown said they hoped would be approved in a few weeks.
Separately from the issue of the congressional stimulus bill, aides to Granholm said her trade mission to Japan, which began on Monday, should not be dramatically affected by the investment crisis. While businesses do not like instability, “short-term instability generally does not have a big impact on long-term planning,” said Liz Boyd, Granholm’s spokesperson.
But Granholm said the “latest news about the national economy is so utterly grim” that it is crucial to push Congress to adopt a second stimulus package.
The first stimulus package resulted in taxpayer refunds being issued to help boost retail sales and consumption earlier this year. This latest proposal would include another extension of unemployment benefits, an extension on tax credits for development and use of alternative energy sources, more investment in infrastructure repairs and a $25 billion loan program for the domestic auto manufacturers.
The officials, all Democrats, blasted Republican presidential candidate John McCain for his earlier claims that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are sound. On Monday McCain blasted Wall Street executives while saying the U.S. economic fundamentals as represented by the American worker remain sound. His campaign later highlighted comments from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg that the economy’s fundamentals are sound.
Granholm said it was “absurd” for McCain to assert the fundamentals were strong when the federal government has “been so hands off on the economy.”
Levin said the latest economic turmoil shows that the “chickens are coming home to roost with (President George W. Bush’s) economic policy.” And the size of the national debt and deficit makes it more difficult for the United States to take any action to right the economy he said.
Republican members of Congress had opposed either parts of or the entire second stimulus proposal, though both Levin and Brown said they thought the latest Wall Street news would bring some Republicans into support it.
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