(This is a discussion of the recent Voters Guide published October 26 by the Minnesota Daily. The 4th CD guide was prepared by JESSIE VAN BERKEL. You can read my position, then an accurate discussion of the positions of my opponents.)

Please note that the truncated format of the Daily guide omitted some of my important explanations, and I have added those below in brackets [].

Would you support a second stimulus bill?

My response: "I don’t think Keynesian economics has worked. If you look at all the other countries in the world, they’re going in the opposite direction, they’re cutting back, they’re getting back to economic efficiency — you look at Germany, you look at England. [of course Germany's got that strong economy] What we need to do is really drive economic growth from the ground up. Now, definitely, I would not support any stimulus efforts." I mean, obviously the Congress spends money, and those things that it spends money for are important, and they help to drive economic growth throughout the country in many cases. Now if you mismanage that or you just overdo it, you start to choke off the private sector. So we would have to review any kind of spending bill. First of all, I would cut earmarks, and just try to work out a national plan with the whole Congress. I know that's very difficult and you only got two years, but I think that's the central function of the Congress. So then we would target the priority needs under the Constitution of the various states for any money that was going back to the states and local government. And then we would want to make sure it didn't step on private sector activity like this Central Corridor project does. You know, you're just spending money to spend money and then you're killing jobs and businesses at the local level. So I would want to review all of that. I would probably shy away from calling it a 'stimulus bill.' I don't think that's been good, and I really don't think we would want a stimulus bill, but we do want to drive economic growth, but not with Keynesian economics.]"

DISCUSSION

Collett really doesn't have any response except to say she would support a well-structured stimulus bill. McCollum calls the Obama stimulus bill "a tremendous success" because she said it saved and/or created 3 million American jobs, and held down unemployment below 16%. But she basically agrees with me saying that another stimulus bill like the tremendously successful Obama stimulus would somehow not be the solution. Instead, she says we should "work with" businesses to get out and start hiring and make plans to move foward, because, she said, "now confidence has been restored." I personally don't sense that that is true, confidence has not been restored. I think we need to do more, beyond the Bush tax cuts (which McCollum opposes for income about $250K) to restore certainty and confidence.

McCollum position: The first stimulus bill was a tremendous success. It created and saved jobs for 3 million Americans. We would have seen unemployment rates at 16 percent, according to conservative economists, had we not moved forward with the stimulus bill …

"Another stimulus bill like we had before is not the solution. The solution is to work with our businesses now [that] confidence has been restored for them to get out and start hiring and making plans to move forward."

Collett: "Depends on how it’s structured."