Stimulus Bill

I heard some news today that made me think that congress should delay voting on the stimulus bill for a week or more.

According to some figures that came out today, retail sales were up in January, not much, but up anyway. New claims for unemployment insurance were lower this week than last week. Again, not by much, but lower. I also heard that home sales were up in January. Could the recession be starting to end?

After all the doom and gloom we've heard the past few weeks, even this little bit of news is encouraging. In fact, I think that if the media took a vacation from economic news, we would see more improvement. People are afraid, they've heard nothing but bad news for months. Even I, an optimist, occasionally give in to the fear. It's time to think about the number of people who are working, the companies that are making money.

Maybe then that person thinking about a new car would actually buy one. The business owner thinking about layoffs might try to postpone them for a month or so to see how his business goes.

I truly believe that voting on the stimulus bill should be postponed for a month. This was put together in a panic and panic action is rarely good. Besides, I think we have a right to see the entire bill since it is our money that will be affected, along with the money and lives of future generations. Let's not make the same mistake as we did with the original bailout last year.