John Ensign: “the President last week talked about the need for speed. He equated spending with stimulus. He even said: That is the…”

“the President last week talked about the need for speed. He equated spending with stimulus. He even said: That is the point, spending is stimulus. If you are going to spend a trillion dollars, you better spend it right. Ask the country of Japan, during the 1990s, when they had six different stimulus bills. Stimulus was not equal to spending in their country because they spent the money incorrectly. They had many examples of bridges to nowhere and roads to nowhere. It isn't just a question of spending money and spending it fast; it is a question of how you spend it. You better spend it correctly. One of the huge problems we have in this bill is that it does very little for housing. When the bill first came out, it did almost nothing for housing. There has been a little bit of change to it since then, and that is good. I brought forward a proposal earlier that I believed--and many believed--would have done a great deal to solve the housing problem. We all know it is the housing problem that has dragged the rest of the economy down. It is the housing sector that has effected the rest of the economy. During the early part of this decade, housing was booming, and it actually helped the rest of the economy. But it was a false bubble, and all bubbles burst, whether it was the dot.com bubble, this housing bubble or any of the bubbles from the past. They always burst.…”