White House open to new 'booster shot'

by Mark Silva

The White House, which pushed Congress earlier this year to enact an "economic stimulus,'' placing tax "rebates'' in the pockets of millions of Americans, says it's open to congressional talk of a second stimulus

"I think we just need to wait and see,'' White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said today, en route to Louisiana with President Bush to talk about what the government already is doing to try to revive the economy. "We're open to ideas and we'll take a look at what comes our way.''

Earlier this year, before the financial meltdown that has seized the financial markets, and before anyone around the White House was even willing to talk about any chance of a recession, the president called the tax rebates a "booster shot.''

"When the money reaches the American people, we expect they will use it to increase consumer spending and that will spur job creation as well,'' Bush said in March, before hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost this year. "My message to the American people is this: I know this is a difficult time for the economy,'' he said then, "but we recognized the problem early and provided the economy with a booster shot.''

"We're continuing to have conversations with members of Congress and we're open to ideas that they would put forward that would -- both Democrats and Republicans alike -- that would stimulate the economy and help us pull out of this downturn faster,'' she said.

"We'd like to see the details of what would be proposed, because there are several programs that have been recommended that are coming in a cloak of being stimulative, and we don't think that those would actually stimulate the economy,'' the White House spokeswoman added. "So anything that we would do, we would have to take a careful look at, and I'm sure the Fed Chairman would want to make sure that those elements of a program would actually stimulate the economy and meet that test...

"Obviously, we were open to a stimulus package last January and one of the things that we agreed with (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi on was that the program needed to be targeted, temporary, and timely,'' she said. "We do think that it will have the effect of helping prevent what could have been even a worse downturn in our economy.''

Does Bush, for his part, believe a second booster shot is needed?

"I haven't spoken to him about that in particular,'' he said. "I think what he would look to is -- all of his advisors... to advise him best as to whether or not they think, collectively, that there is a need for a stimulus package right now.

"So we'll remain open to the idea and then we'll just have to see when Congress gets back, if they decide to move forward, what sort of package they want to draft into legislation -- whether it be principles or actual legislation -- and then see if it actually would stimulate the economy.''