Only ONE Republican Governor Opposes the Stimulus Bill

Why should it surprise anybody that most state governors, regardless of party identification, range from ambivalent to enthusiastic about the prospect of cramming their snouts full of free "stimulus" dollars offered by the fedgov?  I mean, this is approximately as shocking as when Republican governors, many of whom had railed long and loud about the scourge of frivolous lawsuits and the desperate need for tort reform, nonetheless made an unprincipled stampede for tobacco settlement money.

As for Zandi: let's accept, for the sake of discussion, that he's right that extended unemployment insurance benefits, temporary increases to food stamps, general aid to state governments, and increased infrastructure spending will all have a greater stimulus effect than tax cuts -- that through the alchemy of Keynesian multipliers, a dollar spent by government will magically grow GDP by more than a dollar.  That's an argument for a stimulus, not the particular pork-laden monstrosity passed by the House.

Personally I think the stimulus is a moral atrocity, in that it borrows hundreds of billions of dollars (which will eventually be paid back by either looting funds from the citizenry or inflating the currency to worthlessness) in a misguided effort to prevent what's at essence a market correction.  People who thought they were smarter than the market weren't, but rather than holding them accountable for their own poor economic choices we're subsidizing their failures.  Subsidizing something only ensures you get more of it, and Zandi can only handwave the moral hazard away by claiming that, "Their problems are clearly everyone's problems," when that's only the case precisely because government insists on bailing these people out.  And then note Zandi's blasé remarks on page 17 of his report:

Fiscal stimulus does carry substantial costs. The federal budget deficit, which topped $450 billion in fiscal year 2008, could reach $2 trillion in fiscal 2009 and remain as high in 2010. Borrowing by the Treasury will top $2 trillion this year. There will also be substantial long-term costs to extricate the government from the financial system. Unintended consequences of all the actions taken in such a short period will be considerable. These are problems for another day, however.

Oh.  "This is going to be hugely expensive and will probably cause enormous problems for the country down the road, many of them we can't even predict. But let's not worry about that right now."  It's also cute that Zandi thinks government is ever going to be "extricated" from the financial system now that it's sunk it's talons into it.

Whether from a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or a financial calamity, crises end only with overwhelming government action.

...even if that overwhelming government action makes us all worse off in the long run, through the Law of Unintended Consequences.  You were saying something about Zandi breaking from the conventional wisdom?  'Cause that sounds pretty conventional to me.

Nevertheless: if we must have a "stimulus," and that "stimulus" must include government spending, how about putting a moratorium on pork?