Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Suzia van Swol, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

Following a Democratic Steering and Policy Committee listening session on the economy, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that, “we just had a very productive session with some leading economists who for over a year now have been giving us advice and guidance and an assessment of the state of our economy and some judgments about how we should go forward.” She went on to state that, “it is very clear that as we implement our recovery package, we must make sure that it works. And again, confidence is a big part of that investment that we have made. And we also must make sure the public understands this is a very fiscally sound package. The choices that were made in it were to create jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs and jobs as soon as possible and jobs over a period of time to stabilize the economy.” Pelosi emphasized that the baseline for spending has not been raised, but rather the stimulus is targeted in a timeframe to make the difference.

Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said that this is not some effort to supplant the private market, and he believes that what we are doing is actually very pro market. “We are halting the erosion and laying the foundation for things to get better,” stated Frank.
He expressed that one of the things the market suffers from today is a lack of investor confidence, “I think there is this danger that people will look at the mistakes that were made in the administration of the TARP funds in the past administration inpute them to the current administration,” said Frank.

Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.) said that we cannot discount the amount of time that was lost during the previous administration. “What we now see is a concentrated effort to refine those programs, to make sure that they are accountable, to make sure that in fact there is a response to the actions we are taking,” said Miller. He stated that the first release of the TARP money really discouraged the public because they saw billions of dollars flow to the money center banks and nothing loosening up.

The Speaker and members of Congress will continue to call on economists to provide expertise on the best way to move forward during this long term process of restoring the economy.