Y'all can argue amongst yourselves finer points of economies and recoveries all you want. What you cannot do is alter facts to suit your ideology.
...[B]ecause once trapped inside a debt-deflationary spiral, it is very hard for an economy to emerge from it... confidence has to be restored; consumers have to be persuaded to spend and not hoard their precious savings; interest rates have to be very low; debts have to be written off. Getting all this done is really tough in the midst of a Depression - which is why no government should allow their economy to spin into a debt-deflationary spiral....[1]
That's from Ann Pettifor, one economist who predicted the economic events of today a long, long time ago when Greenspan et al were pumping the market bubble as best they could. But the Greenspan era was indeed a long, long time ago, in experience, if not in calendar years. Today:
“The American economy is facing serious challenges; families are hurting and businesses are struggling,” said Fortenberry. “I do not wish to see any American suffer unemployment or foreclosure, or see any business suffer a downturn. It is unfortunate that in the name of stimulus, the Washington process has resulted in a massive unrestrained and unsustainable spending bill that will be very difficult to reverse.
Let us parse that paragraph.
“The American economy is facing serious challenges; families are hurting and businesses are struggling,” said Fortenberry. “I do not wish to see any American suffer unemployment or foreclosure, or see any business suffer a downturn."
Yes, the economy is in trouble. Yet despite your wishes to the contrary, Americans are indeed suffering unemployment, foreclosure and business downturn. Even the mainstream media cannot avoid this reality. Right? You do realize that unemployment, foreclosures and business failures are all growing and expanding globally these days? Even in Nebraska. I could present a page full of charts and figures but surely that would be gilding the lily, so to speak. Any normal human, even our so-called enemies in the Axis of Evil wants jobs, housing and good health for their particular in-group.
Moving on to the second half...
"It is unfortunate that in the name of stimulus, the Washington process has resulted in a massive unrestrained and unsustainable spending bill that will be very difficult to reverse."
Working backwards from the end, what do you mean "difficult to reverse"? Nobody is going to reverse the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it's not remotely possible -- you guys just voted for and passed the ARRA in both houses and the President has signed the bill. It's the law. By the time you and the rest of the Republicans would have the remotest likelihood of "reversing" this act, it will be ancient history. What possible purpose could "reverse" serve unless, perhaps it's another dog whistle term, showing solidarity with CNBC’s Rick Santelli, perhaps? I dunno; on the face of it, "difficult to reverse" just doesn't make sense.
"[U]nsustainable spending bill" is a nice strawman argument. Nobody is calling for ARRA to be permanent; nobody ever claimed fiscal stimulus itself is sustainable. A stimulus, by definition, is a short-term measure designed to alleviate (or reverse) existing conditions that are -- wait for it -- unsustainable! It's not that the stimulus plan is unsustainable, it is the banks' leveraging their deposits 30, 40, 50 percent and more. That is unsustainable and, by the way, inherently un-self-regulatable if I may coin a phrase.
"[U]nrestrained spending bill" would mean what, exactly? That you weren't able to restrain it à la Grover Norquist? The bill hardly meets the defininition of unrestrained unless you choose to define the term as "more than what I'd prefer to spend", which is grammatically dishonest but does make the sentence fragment somewhat defensible. To be honestly unrestrained would indicate an ARRA with no dollar limitations at all; and that's just ridiculously false.
"[M]assive". Yes, by anyone's yardstick, $787 Billion is a lot of money. You go on to compare it with budgets from previous years and that's a sobering comparison. It's not quite so scary when compared with the U.S. Gross Domestic Product which, even in 2009, is predicted to be something North of $14 Trillion. Still, a trillion here, a trillion there....
But it is an exaggeration, at minimum, to say unrestrained spending. It is false, even dishonest to complain that the ARRA is unsustainable; you might as well criticise firearms because bullets fall to the ground.
"[T]he Washington process" is called voting. You, as a Representative, are in Congress to represent the people of Nebraska. If you so dislike the process, perhaps you should step aside and let someone else assume the mantle.
Finally, the central idea is all that remains: "It is unfortunate that in the name of stimulus". Are you seriously suggesting that economic stimulus is a bad idea? I have to ask because the weak presentation of your theme is plausibly deniable. (Reminds me of "what the definition of is is".) As a member of the opposition, I guess you're not actually required to stand for anything other than opposition, obstruction and delay but I want more.
I want to know if you have an economic recovery plan.
I'd like to see whether your recovery recipe differs significantly from "more of what got us into this mess": To wit. tax cuts and legal immunity for the wealthy while socializing the downside of pretty much any and all corporate activity.
I'd like to read your plan for fixing things. I'm especially interested in what you think needs fixing, even if you don't exactly have a cure for it.
I'd like to watch the development of a "Fort Report" so I could see how ideology and reality duke it out on paper, and how the result becomes a Reaganesque pastiche instead of, say, an actual policy statement.
[1] Ann Pettifor, Debtonation debtonation.org/2009/02/a-debt-deflationary-spiral/
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