GOP warns against stimulus rush

Congressional Republicans on Monday criticized a $1 trillion stimulus as wasteful spending and signaled they will oppose having the bill ready by President-elect Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) demanded hearings and at least a week to review the bill to prevent wasteful spending and fraud. In a statement, he said he understood Democrats wanted to move the bill in the two weeks Congress is in session before Obama’s inauguration, but warned he would not agree to rush the bill through the Senate.

{mosads}“Taxpayers are in no mood to have a single dollar wasted, but it’s not yet been explained how their tax dollars will be protected and not wasted in a rush to spend their money,” McConnell said. “The American people need to know if their money is going to be spent on Mob museums and water slides.”

House Republicans have been more vocal in their opposition to a large, spending-oriented stimulus package in the coming year. Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday also released a statement calling for more time to analyze a stimulus bill.

“I would ask the Democratic leadership to guarantee that such a bill will not be brought to the floor of the House unless there have been public hearings in the appropriate committees, the entire text has been available online for the American people to review for at least one week, and it includes no special-interest earmarks,” Boehner said.

Republicans appear ready to use the debate over the stimulus bill to project their party as responsible stewards of public funds, and opponents of an expanding government. The GOP has lost seats in the House and Senate over the last two elections, and some in the party blame those defeats on the GOP losing its way on fiscal conservatism.

McConnell said any stimulus should meet a simple test: “Will the yet-unwritten, reportedly trillion-dollar spending bill really create jobs and grow the economy — or will it simply create more government spending, more bureaucrats and deeper deficits?”

It could be difficult for McConnell to slow down a stimulus bill in the Senate. Republicans could be down to 41 seats if Democrat Al Franken defeats Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). Franken is ahead in the latest recount.

It also may be tough for McConnell to hold on to centrist Republicans in states carried by Obama in last year’s presidential election.

Economists on both sides of the political spectrum have called for a stimulus to spur on the economy, although conservative economists have also urged that such moves be paired with tax cuts. On Sunday, Obama adviser David Axelrod said the incoming administration has not put a price tag on the stimulus, but suggested it would be in the range of $675 billion to $775 billion.

Said McConnell: “We must also make distinctions between what is ‘stimulus’ — defined by Speaker Pelosi earlier this year as ‘timely, targeted and temporary’ — and what is merely more government spending on favored projects we don’t need with money we don’t have.”