by Robert Gary

Created on: February 19, 2009

Yes, it can have a marginal impact over a two-year period. If we are lucky, it will shorten a 10-year depression down to an 8-year recession. The plan could have been much better. There were several basic errors.

First - Far too much money went to the states. It goes straight into payroll of state employees. People who were let go due to budget cutting are now brought back. Maybe some extra people are hired for projects that couldn't proceed due to lack of funding. This is good for bureacrats and teachers and possibly some healthcare workers. The stimulative impact is very small. People know there's a recession, so they will save their payroll money against the possibility of bad times ahead.

Second - The so-called shovel ready projects - 90% of them are not shovel ready. They have to be let out for bid and that takes 6 months or or year, even if the state really does know precisely what it wants to do.

Third - The slight adjustments to the FICA tax, which on average will yield about $13.00 per week - the price of a couple of cheeseburgers - that's not going to bring the USA out of a serious recession or a depression. It took the Baby Boom after World War II to get us out of the last one - we won't end this one with a couple of cheeseburgers worth of help.

Fourth - There was a huge missed opportunity. They used $787 Billion - supposedly to create or save 3.5 million jobs.

But, if just $75 Billion had been put into SBA Direct Start-Up Loans at $25,000 per loan - 3 million jobs could have been created for start-up entrepreneurs within less than six months!

It not just the number of wholly new jobs created that counts, it's also the structural quality of creating 3 million new businesses in the USA versus having some shovels turn over some dirt a year or two from now.

The 40,000 Wall Street people who lost their jobs have college and advanced degrees in accounting, marketing, management, product design, bookeeping, sales, and leadership. Aren't these the exact skills that would make a CEO of a new small business sucessful? They are. So it's a huge missed opportunity that nobody thought of the SBA and rejuvenating its Direct Loans and Start-Up loan programs, which have been unfunded for the past 40 years.

Actually, about two weeks ago, I pleaded with the SBA to ask for the funding, and even wrote some proposed testimony for the Acting Administrator to offer on Capitol Hill. I also wrote to Secretary Tim Geithner, and to White House Economic Advisor Larry Summers.

But Washington

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