Calls for new stimulus grow louder as Rendell adds voice

The calls for another stimulus package grew louder Wednesday as a top Democrat urged House members to consider the idea.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) argued that another stimulus package just for infrastructure projects would produce more jobs.

{mosads}Rendell, in testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was careful not to criticize the $787 billion stimulus passed in February, saying it will boost the economy, but he argued another economic recovery package full of infrastructure projects could put more Americans to work.

The stimulus has created up to 2,000 new jobs in Pennsylvania and saved up to 10,000 more, he said.

“I would like to see a second stimulus devoted solely to infrastructure,” he said. “It’s what produces jobs, and produces orders for factories — American factories.”

The remarks by Rendell, the head of the National Governors Association and a former Democratic Party chairman, cut against attempts by the Obama administration to stand by the current stimulus. At the same House committee hearing, Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that “no one in this administration is talking about a second stimulus.”

When Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, noted that Laura Tyson, a member of the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said Tuesday that another stimulus was possible, Nabors called her an “outside adviser.”

But the idea is gaining some traction on Capitol Hill. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Sunday that he’s not satisfied with the results of the first stimulus and that lawmakers need to be “open to whether we need additional action.” Hoyer and Democratic leaders have said that it’s not yet time to consider another stimulus package.

Rendell did say that the initial stimulus should be given more time before another recovery package is considered, noting that more projects will be ramping up in the next few months.

Rendell has been calling for months for more infrastructure funding. He’s also called for a new national infrastructure bank to finance projects, even though the stimulus package set aside $120 billion for infrastructure and is supposed to boost the economy through 2011.

“[The stimulus is] a good first step, but the challenges in infrastructure are enormous and we hope that the administration and the Congress will work with us to meet those challenges,” he said in March. “We’ve just scratched the surface of the infrastructure needs in this economy in the stimulus bill.”

Other Democrats, including House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (Minn.), said that the stimulus in February didn’t include enough money for road and rail projects, which they argued would have a long-term benefit for communities and would put more people to work than would tax cuts, which Republicans had called for. A large chunk of the stimulus — $288 billion — went to tax reductions, including a new middle-class income tax cut President Obama pushed for.

Republicans on Wednesday continued to blast the stimulus, which was passed with only three GOP votes, as being ineffective for helping American workers.

“The real number we look at is the unemployment rate — and it’s skyrocketed,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told Rendell. The rate of unemployed U.S. workers was 9.5 percent for June, marking a 26-year high.

But Rendell said that the stimulus will lead to more jobs and help workers in other ways.

“Look, I think the stimulus bill was misnamed,” he said. “Part of it was stimulus, part of it was job creation, but a lot of it was relief,” such as increased unemployment insurance and food stamps, he said. He suggested that a second stimulus creating more infrastructure projects would lead more directly to jobs.

Rendell hasn’t said how big he would like an infrastructure bill to be or exactly what it would contain, according to his spokesman, Barry Ciccocioppo.

“It’s not something that he has been specifically outlining, other than to say that infrastructure is so critical and so effective that we could use another stimulus,” Ciccocioppo said.