Administration, Top Democrats Send Mixed Signals on Second Stimulus

Published December 24, 2015

Obama administration officials, as well as top Democrats in Congress, can't seem to give a clear signal as to whether a second stimulus package could be considered if the economy worsens.

With unemployment approaching 10 percent, President Obama has said that a second stimulus is not needed at the moment, but he's not taking any options off the table to address a potentially deepening economic crisis.

But his advisers have given conflicting statements. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer don't seem to be on the same page either.

Beltway chatter about a potential sequel to the Obama administration's $787 stimulus that was OK'd in February kicked up Tuesday as Laura D'Andrea Tyson, an economic adviser to the White House, promoted the idea during an address in Singapore.

"We should be planning on a contingency basis for a second round of stimulus," she said, according to a Reuters article. Tyson reportedly said the first round was a little too small and a second round should be spent on infrastructure.

While Tyson seemed to go further than Obama in talking up the idea, a top White House budget official on Wednesday seemed to put a lid on such discussion, dismissing Tyson's comments during a House committee hearing on the stimulus.

Robert Nabors, deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told lawmakers that Tyson is an "outside economic adviser" who does not technically work for the administration and suggested her comments did not reflect the White House stance.

"No one in the administration is talking about a second stimulus at this point," he said.

Yet when given a separate opportunity to put the lid on stimulus scuttlebutt, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs continued to leave the door open.

"(Obama is) not ruling anything out, but at the same time he's not ruling anything in," Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One.

James Horney, director of federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the administration apparently is keeping an open mind on a second stimulus because it may have to.

"It may become clear that it's necessary for us to do more," he said. "I would think you definitely need to keep the options open."

Horney said the administration should not appear to push for such an option in the near-term, since it would have little chance of passing any time soon. But he said political opinion could change with course of the economy.

"I don't think it would make any sense to rule it out," he said.

Republican opposition, though, has only strengthened as the economy has worsened. Those who opposed the first stimulus -- every Republican in Congress save for three senators -- say the declining job numbers are proof the stimulus was not the salve the administration said it would be.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday that a second stimulus would be "an even worse idea" than the first.

Democrats in Congress aren't quite as united.

Reid on Tuesday slammed the door on the idea of another stimulus.

"A little less than 90 percent (of the stimulus funding) still needs to be put out to the American people, and we're in the process of doing that. ... As far as I'm concerned, there's no showing to me that another stimulus is needed," Reid said emphatically.

But Hoyer reportedly said on Tuesday that while it's too early to tell, lawmakers should be "open" to additional action.

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/administration-top-democrats-send-mixed-signals-on-second-stimulus