Obama's plan is having a bumpy ride

As the specifics of President-elect Obama's proposed economic recovery plan have started to circulate more widely over the past several days, criticism of the proposed is coming from those who ought to be Obama's most reliable cheerleaders.

Here's the nut of the plan from today's Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Obama's team has laid out some components of his plan: a $500-per-worker tax cut; tax write-offs for businesses suffering losses in 2008 and 2009; incentives for business investment; about $100 billion for health care, to temporarily take on more of the states' burden for Medicaid and to finance computerized medical records; billions for old-style building projects targeting roads, bridges, water systems and schools; and billions more to foster alternative energy and energy efficiency.

So, who has a problem with that?

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on repeal of the Bush tax cuts now (which Obama has not committed to do) instead of letting them expire at the end of this year: ""Put me down as clearly as you possibly can as one who wants to have those tax cuts for the wealthiest in America repealed."
• Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad on the $500 payroll tax credit: "How much lift is that going to give?" he said. "I don't think there's much bang for the buck there."
• Sen. Ron Wyden, who sits on the Finance Committee, on the $3,000 business tax credit for each new job created: "There's just not a lot of history of that working very well."
• Economy guru Paul Krugman on the size of the stimulus plan: "Mr. Obama’s prescription doesn’t live up to his diagnosis. The economic plan he’s offering isn’t as strong as his language about the economic threat. In fact, it falls well short of what’s needed."
• Columnist E.J. Dionne assessing economists' (like Krugman's) perception of tax cuts: "Many economists, particularly but not exclusively liberals, argue that government spending programs stimulate the economy more quickly than tax cuts. Recipients of tax cuts might choose to save rather than spend the money they get back or use it to pay down debt."

Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat and Democrat.

I get that Republicans love tax cuts and Obama wants bipartisan support for the recovery plan, but there's no reason to think that $500 tax rebates will make any more of an impact on the economy than the last round of stimulus checks.

What happened to doing well by doing good? Why not cut payroll taxes on the first $25,000 of household income and target a modest gas-tax increase toward transportation infrastructure? Why not repeal the Bush tax cuts (as promised) and apply them to lower-income brackets?

Bipartisan support should not come at the expense of putting our best economic foot forward. The Republican congressmen who would not support a plan for lack of enough tax cuts represent the minority view on the issue -- as evidenced by the fact that they lost huge numbers in both houses.