SOUNDING OFF:

Don’t get me wrong. I am a strong Barack Obama supporter. My belief is that a McCain presidency would have brought an economic lightweight to lead perhaps a decadelong economic decline.

But desperate times must hearken President Obama to more drastic measures.

Using Paul Krugman’s comments and exercising my economic wits, I say we need more true stimulus, not one watered down by AWOL Republican tax cuts, nor Democrat ideological feints, nor by earmarks. Also, we need emergency action with the banks — probably temporary takeover by the government.

The newly passed stimulus plan assumed an average unemployment rate of 8.1% this year. The unemployment numbers surpassed that in February and are steadily climbing.

The Obama plan, by his estimate, will create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. Our economy has lost 4.4 million jobs; at the current rate of job loss, by January 2011, we will be down more than 12 million more jobs. By 2011, that will be more than 16 million jobs lost. The stimulus would reduce that to 12.5 million unemployed — still more than 8% unemployment.

The comparison of this administration and FDR’s is commonly made, though the 1930s were exponentially worse. From 1929 to 1933 unemployment went from 4% to 25%. FDR took office in 1933, at the depths of depression, when lost hope and desperation were rampant.

Because spending programs increased significantly, FDR, who initially favored balanced budgets, ran deficits. New Dealers and most economists did not support the Keynesian argument for government spending as a way to economic recovery. Subsequent balanced budgets of 1937 and 1938 caused an economic downturn and increased unemployment until the war. Arguments that cite FDR Keynesian spending as a recovery failure by current conservatives are not only false, but extremely disingenuous and self-serving.

The longer FDR waited before he took drastic action, the more the slow recovery fed his political opponents, the more the people lost hope and the more difficult it was to push through added spending and reforms.

A long economic decline also has other impacts. A Germany abused by victorious allies after WWI and suffering from the burden of reparations, the despair of unemployment and from gnawing hunger and hopelessness, was ripe for the likes of Hitler’s fascism.

Yes, prolonged global economic travail — even in our times — can easily lead to a desperate, nationalistic grasp for food and land — war.

The solution is for the Obama administration to push for a new, a larger and a more potent stimulus package while the public and Congress still supports it, and perhaps more importantly while the world is not yet devastated by the specter of joblessness, hunger and hopelessness.

Obama has made global and domestic headway, repairing eight years of Bush damage. Thoughtful, forward-looking action is still needed, for our economy and for world peace.

The latter may sound like a strident warning now, but give the world another year of severe economic depression and see what conditions it will stir. That is why Obama must not wait for an economic miracle that the feckless Republicans predict will occur with free-market solutions.

Remember conservative vision and milquetoast Democrats brought us to this chasm. Now many conservatives, including Rush Limbaugh, hope that Obama fails. Do you suppose they want Rapture?

For Rush’s misguided audience, it would provide great entertainment value, and possibly another extension of Rush’s $400-million contract — at least for seven years.

JIM HOOVER lives in Huntington Beach.