Stimulus or not?

In Steve Benen's post WHEN THE STIMULUS MEETS THE ANTI-STIMULUS on Washington Monthly, he expressed his ideas why our nation isn’t moving forward from recession, and “booming”.  Benen claims that the government stimulus package prevented a depression, but there was no “boom”. This is said to be because actions of the stimulus package were counteracted by cuts by state and local government spending. These state and local level cuts overpowered federal stimulus and government spending actually slowed after the recession hit. This is also why available jobs are becoming increasingly scarce. The private sector keeps hiring new workers, while the larger job market is cut back as state and local governments lay off thousands of Americans. Benen says this is how Republicans try to heal our economy, which will not work. His idea of a solution is a policy that Congress could pass to redirect resources to the states so that they don’t have to scale back so harshly.

I would have to agree that his idea to boost the economy, in theory, does make sense. Our states are desperately cutting back. My school district alone is cutting back 300 jobs, and budgets are being severely reduced. What will this do for us? Unemployment on the rise will do no justice to our economy. A policy that gave states and local governments resources to increase spending and “boom” the local economy would benefit more greatly, than that of what is currently being done. Obviously we aren’t moving forward, something new needs to be done. Benen seems to be a credible political blogger, he has a very extensive background in politics, with a degree in political science, intern time in Bill Clintons office at the Whitehouse, and the title of “One of the Top 50 most influential political commentators in the United States”. I would believe that he’s experienced, and seems to know what he’s talking about.