Warner Weighs in on Stimulus

Tue, February 03, 2009 - 11:31 AM

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., raised concerns Monday night with the $885 billion economic stimulus now being debated in the Senate.

The bill would give Virginia close to $4 billion, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Of that amount $1.6 billion would be dedicated to stabilizing the state budget.

Warner said he wanted to see the stimulus bill focus more on job creation and sought assurances the spending was short term.

“I want to make sure states get some assistance, but I also think that states should use their rainy day funds,” Warner said during an interview for the Bloomberg TV show “Money and Politics.” He said federal aid to the states should be directly tied to states “making some hard choices.”

Warner, who made his fortune as a co-founder of telecommunications giant Nextel, sounded wary of continued government investment to patch up the ailing economy.

“The economy will recover but we don’t want to be stuck with a lot of long term out-year commitments that we might not be able to afford in terms of the deficit,” Warner said. A prolonged government intervention in the private sector could “cause havoc” on the credit markets, he said.

Virginia’s freshman senator still encouraged swift action on the stimulus, particularly on road and bridge spending. Virginia stands to receive $918 million for transit, highway and water projects under the current package, according to Senate Appropriations Committee staff.

“If we delay and debate and go on and back and forth,” Warner said, “we could end up missing the whole construction season in many of the Northern states because the money would not get out on road projects to actually be put to use this summer.”

--Neil H. Simon