What Does Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan Actually Do?

During the President’s first week in office, he has made a lot of pronouncements about how the new administration will operate under the rubric of transparency. That sounds good in theory, and although I feel bad for criticizing President Obama when he hasn’t even been on the job for a full week, I’m skeptical, especially when it comes to the economic recovery plan.

After listening to President Obama’s first radio address and watching his chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers on NBC’s Meet the Press, I’m still a little confused about what the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan actually says. Assuming that Obama means what he says about transparency, I went to the White House’s website to find out what the specifics of the plan are. There’s nothing there but vague generalizations. Take a look for yourself:

* Doubling the production of alternative energy in the next three years.
* Modernizing more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills.
* Making the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized.
* Equipping tens of thousands of schools, community colleges, and public universities with 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries.
* Expanding broadband across America, so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world.
* Investing in the science, research, and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs, new discoveries, and entire new industries.

That all sounds good, but what does any of it mean and how much will it cost? The PDF document available for download on the White House’s website is just more of the same – lots of grandiose goals without specific details about how the $825 billion is going to be spent.

Lawrence Summers, Director of the National Economic Council, is the man who will be giving President Obama his daily economic briefings. This guy looked like a chump on Meet The Press and couldn’t give a straightforward response to any of David Gregory’s questions about tax cuts or government spending. (NBC was a little generous with the webcast version of the interview – they cut out the more rediculous moments when he really had egg on his face.)

Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner, on the other hand, came off as sounding reasonable by comparison when he asked about the justification for several spending items that are included in Obama’s stimulus package.

While I think there is a strong justification for increasing the funding for Pell Grants and elementary school renovations, I think Rep. Boehner may have a point about the $200 million for contraception. Don’t get me wrong. I’m pro-choice and I think that the government should subsidize contraception as part of a national health care package. You would think that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would have a strong defense of the inclusion of contraception in the economic stimulus package, but she wasn’t able to offer more than one sentence to defend it when she was interviewed yesterday by George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week.

“The family planning services reduce cost,” Pelosi said, “One of the elements of this package is assistance to the states. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”

“So no apologies for that?” I asked her.

“No apologies. No,” Pelosi said. “And this is a, to stimulate the economy, is an economic recovery package and as we put it forth we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy. Food stamps, unemployment insurance, some of the initiatives you just mentioned. Believe it or not, they’re the right thing to do but they also stimulate the economy.”

Could you be more specific, Rep. Pelosi? How do contraceptives reduce costs? Whose costs? The government’s costs? Like for welfare and public education? Fewer children equals fewer dollars spent on early childhood education and federally subsidized health care programs? Or do you mean the woman’s costs? Fewer dollars spent on birth control equals more money spent somewhere else in the economy, like on rent, gas, and groceries? See how hard that was, Rep. Pelosi? It only took me a few sentences, but I managed to offer up a defense of contraceptive spending. You’re a woman. Maybe it’s been a while since you had to worry about not being able to afford your birth control prescription. But I really expect a little bit more from a politician who’s supposed to be pro-choice.

The Democrats obviously believe that they have this economic stimulus package in the bag because they control both houses of Congress as well as the White House. But it would be really nice to see a line-by-line explanation somewhere, anywhere, on the White House’s website that gives the full details of Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. That would be, oh I don’t know, transparent. The Washington Post had more information about the specifics of the plan than the White House did.

Maybe we’ll get more details when the House and Senate begin debate the economic recovery package on Tuesday and Wednesday. But honestly, that information should already be available.