John Kerry wants New Deal II

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/2008_10_25_John_Kerry_wants_New_Deal_II:_Backs_big_fed_stimulus/

John Kerry wants New Deal II
Backs big fed stimulus
By Jay Fitzgerald
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Jay Fitzgerald has been a journalist and blogger for years. He's now the general economics reporter for the Boston Herald.

The nation’s battered economy needs an old-fashioned “Rooseveltian lift” of regulatory reforms and government spending on the infrastructure, clean energy and other sectors, U.S. Sen. John Kerry said yesterday.

Kerry, facing a re-election challenge from Republican Jeff Beatty, rejected GOP calls for more tax rebates to stimulate the economy, as was done last spring.

“I am for a stimulus package. I am not for a stimulus package that just sends out checks,” said Kerry at a Boston Herald editorial meeting yesterday.

Instead, Kerry said the nation needs to spend more in areas that will both help the economy in the short run and long run - such as on roads and bridges, clean energy initiatives and life sciences.

Calling current financial woes the most “complicated economic time we’ve had since the Great Depression,” Kerry said new approaches are needed to reform the current financial system.

“We’re operating with old institutions that are incapable of responding fast enough, dealing with vast sums of money that cross boundaries in different financial centers,” said Kerry, who plans to provide more details of his economic agenda Tuesday at North Shore Community College in Lynn.

Democrats in Washington are pushing for more New Deal-like spending approaches for helping the economy, while the Republicans support boosting the economy via tax cuts.

But asked to respond to Kerry’s economic remarks, Beatty’s camp made references to a famous anti-Kerry crack by former state Senate President William Bulger and to rumors Kerry might be in line to become secretary of state if Barack Obama wins the presidential race.

“The only thing we know about John Kerry’s ‘plans’ is that printed on the bottom line is JFK - Just for Kerry. We just wonder how he’s going to get all this done from inside the Secretary of State’s suite in Foggy Bottom,” the Beatty camp’s statement read.