WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday there are no plans for lawmakers to push through a second economic-stimulus package, but she said individual job-creation measures could be pursued.
Speaking after a morning-long meeting between House Democratic leaders and a number of economists, the California Democrat said a range of suggestions had been made on how the government could act to spur job creation.
These include extending measures that were in the initial $787 billion stimulus plan, such as federal jobless benefits, food-stamp programs, funding for the COBRA scheme that helps jobless people keep health insurance, and a tax credit for first-time home buyers.
An extension of unemployment benefits are seen by many experts to be among the most effective ways of stimulating the economy, since people who are receive the benefits generally spend the money right away.
Politically, it would be difficult for Congress to pass another large economic-stimulus package. The jury is still out on the first one, with more than half the nearly $800 billion left to be spent.
All the economists who spoke at a press conference after the meeting said that it looked like an economic recovery is under way. But most also said there is a real risk of the recovery being a jobless one that doesn't benefit most Americans.
Calling the recovery "very fragile," Mark Zandy, co-founder of Moody's Economy.com, said he believed the federal government should move aggressively to ensure there is a recovery in employment.
Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics, a consultancy, said the Obama administration should consider redirecting unused money from last year's Treasury plan to rescue Wall Street banks to do more to help homeowners facing foreclosure and to boost lending by community and regional banks.
On Wednesday, the administration announced plans to ask Congress for legislation to raise the ceiling on federal loans to small businesses. It also said it would consider using money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to provide capital injections to small banks that do the bulk of their lending to small businesses.
The meeting was convened in the face of a national unemployment rate at 9.8% and as jobless numbers continue to rise.
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