now, it's state Dems who want "stimulus"

From Lesley Stedman-Weidenbener in yesterday's C-J...

The subtitle of the article: "Democratic legislators puzzled over lack of talk on job creation"

Then the last few paragraph are devoted to their puzzlement at Daniels' speech. I wish someone in the paper would talk about their puzzlement in economics and "job creation".

Now, this is not nearly as bad as the federal version of the same thing. But even the state Dems have too much faith in govt's ability to spend ourselves out of trouble. A little bit of short-term deficit spending-- dipping into savings-- might be fine. But it will make little difference short-term and will arguably make things worse in the long-term.

Throughout his address, Daniels referred often to the economic downturn, calling this a time of "great stress" and "national and even international alarm."

But Democrats said that they were surprised Daniels didn't speak more directly about jobs. He offered no new spending specifically to create jobs.

Instead, he referred to jobs only as he spoke about the need to keep taxes low.

"A state striving for economic greatness should constantly be looking for ways to reduce its burden on workers and enterprise," Daniels said.

Democrats have been calling for the state to spend some Rainy Day Fund money and other savings on education and construction projects to help stimulate the economy.

"The governor's speech was a missed opportunity," Simpson said. "This is a time when we should be investing in job creation and putting people back to work."

But Daniels said the reserves must be safeguarded: "None of us knows how long this downturn will last, or how much tougher it may become to protect essential services."