White House Wants Billions for the Economy -- But Don't Call It a Stimulus

With a majority of Americans critical of the president's handling of the economy, most of the public disapproving of the direction in which the country is headed, and looming midterm elections that threaten to be a bloodbath for Democrats, the White House is under extreme pressure to do more to get the ailing national economy back on its feet.

So this week, the Obama administration unveils three measures aimed at jump-starting job creation and helping businesses -- or at least blunting criticism that the president has not done enough and that his course of action has been the wrong one. Although the proposals cost an estimated $50 billion, $100 billion and $200 billion respectively, the White House isn't calling the proposed legislation a "stimulus." On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tamped down any comparisons with the $787 billion Recovery Act package, saying he did not "think this is anywhere near the level" of the 2009 stimulus.

Given the strong GOP resistance to any new government spending -- especially in a tight congressional calendar before the elections -- whether the legislation stands a chance remains very much in the air. Even seemingly noncontroversial spending measures such as the extension of unemployment benefits has faced stiff and prolonged resistance in Congress.

In fact, the greatest gain for the White House and the Democrats may be one of pure optics, namely that the president is trying to bolster the economy but Republicans are standing in the way. Whether the gambit is successful will in large part rest with the GOP response.

The first measure -- announced by President Obama on Monday at a labor event in Milwaukee -- calls for $50 billion in government spending to improve the nation's infrastructure, including repairing 150,000 miles of roads, maintaining 4,000 miles of railways and 150 miles of runways, as well as advancing what the president called "a next-generation air-traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays."

To pay for the projects, Obama proposes an "infrastructure bank" funded by both private investment and tax dollars. According to the New York Times, Obama championed the concept when he was still a senator and it has lately gained wider support inside policy making circles. The president said the bill would "not only create jobs immediately" but would also "make our economy hum over the long haul," though he declined to give specific numbers on the estimated jobs created or cite the full cost of the program.

A second program, which the president is set to announce in Cleveland on Wednesday as part of a broader economic plan, calls for $100 billion in research and development tax credits for businesses. The measure would increase and permanently extend these tax credits which have, for the last 30 years, been renewed only on a temporary basis -- leading to frustration on the part of many business owners.

A third measure would give businesses tax write offs for the full value of new equipment purchases through 2011, with a goal of increasing demand for goods and creating jobs. The White House estimated that such a move would cost $200 billion in revenues over the next two years, but that the ultimate net loss would be $30 billion over 10 years.

Given the stormy outlook in Washington these days, it's unclear what the future holds for the administration's not-quite-a-stimulus stimulus. "We're in a political season, we get that," Gibbs said. "This is not simply something that the president's proposing to get us somehow through the next several weeks of how we get our economy from how it is to where we want it to be. The president is focused on the problems that the American people have, the economic situation that we all find ourselves in. It may or may not overlap well with a political calendar."