Major Catholic Social Justice Lobby Hails Stimulus Package (They Need an Economist)

Mirrors of Justice has reproduced pitch for Stimulus from Network . "Network" is a Catholic social justice lobby, in Washington, DC. Network is staffed mainly by Catholic sisters. It is their legislative update. See The Economic Stimulus Package

Now this press release is really a piece of work. They inform us among other things:

The House vote was 246-183. Sadly, not one House Republican was able to resist party pressure and support the common good.

No mention of the fact that House Republicans were pretty much left out of the process and that does not seem to promote the common good.

Although this bill, as any compromise bill, is far from perfect, it will help to provide approximately 3 million jobs.

If you say so!!!!

In an amazing amount of short sighted thing they talk about what they are glad is out of the bill

Opposed and kept out of the Recovery bill
E-Verify Program - would have required all contracting employers to use the Internet-based program to verify the employment eligibility of their hires. This was removed from the bill.

Now like the sisters I support immigration reform. However I am not for just opening the gates up. This is very Deja Vu. As we were trying to get common safeguards into the immigration bill so it could get out the Senate I often found parts of Network were working to get out the most common sense regulations out of the immigration bill. There was and it appears to be vast disconnect between Network and the American people. Part of the issue is that people will buy what is commonly called a "amnesty" but they want to know that promises on real work force enforcement will happen.

It is ironic that Network is glad that this system is gone that could be put in place and up and running to massage those fears and legitimate concerns as to a future immigration bill .

However there are more fundamental problems. If one thinks the expansion of these programs are a good thing then perhaps people should be alarmed there seems to be little thinking of how these programs are expanded for max effect. There has been little public discussion of this. Plus what happens of the Stimulus package does not "stimulate". Will that not hurt Catholic Social Justice Advocates bona fides that are lobbying for this bill?

But there is a more fundamental problem and Ross Douthat mentioned this late last month at this post Deficits Don't Matter?

The stimulus bill is thick with non-stimulative spending increases because it's a chance to, well, pass spending increases that Democrats think are worthy. Which is fair enough; they did, after all, thump the GOP two election cycles in a row. But surely even the most deficit-happy liberal ought to worry a little about how all of this is going to be paid for - and by extension, whether a spending binge on existing programs today will make it harder to pass, say, an expensive overhaul of the health care system tomorrow. At some point, barring an economic miracle, the GOP will be able to get at least some traction by playing Ross Perot and arguing against out-of-control spending. Maybe the whole liberal wish list will be passed into law before that happens: As Yglesias says in a subsequent post, it's possible that at a time like this there's no "fixed sum of political capital" for liberals to spend down, and so the thing to do is go for broke, quite literally, instead of trying to prioritize health care reform over Pell Grants, or climate change legislation over Head Start. But there's also a chance that the Democrats will look back on the stimulus bill as an instance where they gained ground in the short run, but at the expense of their longer-term ambitions.

So I would suggest to Network that might want to take what Douthat is saying to heart. THERE IS A LIMIT TO WHAT THE GOVT CAN SPEND. If I was a member of network I would be much more concerned that this money seems to be going out into a thousand different directions with no thinking of a big picture. Further that some of their big concerns they have and hope to see addressed over the next few years well might not be because there is no more money. Not only does Network needs some more economists they need some people with some common political sense.

I would suggest for a little reality Catholic Social Justice Groups look at this little piece You Mean We Have To Pay For It?

As Douthat said above perhaps Democrats and those that are looking to advance Govt programs might think of prioritizing!!! Network might find like Democrats that they will " look back on the stimulus bill as an instance where they gained ground in the short run, but at the expense of their longer-term ambitions."

So before they lecture Republicans on violating the "Common Good" perhaps they should look in the mirror and realize that such rhetoric is counter productive.