I believe Sir Richard Branson is correct but bipartisanship sounds good but are the politicians ready to bridge the gap.

President Barack Obama yesterday pitched his economic plan at a Caterpillar Inc. plant in Illinois troubled by impeding layoffs expected to go into 2010.

The $790 billion stimulus plan is nearing votes in the House and Senate. The package of spending programs and tax relief may soon become law with Obama’s signature. However, what we have seen are there are still major ideological differences between Republicans and Democrats and bipartisanship isn’t everything.

Congressional deliberations over President Obama’s economic recovery package, have shown us that historians and politicians are comparing our economy and its politics to the New Deal.

Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada opposes the bill, arguing that government spending cannot reverse economic contraction. “History has proven that formula is a failure. We saw it in the Great Depression. You cannot simply spend your way out of a recession or a depression,” he said.

An economist at Washington’s CATO Institute, Dan Mitchell, says the New Deal actually made the depression longer and more severe by saddling the nation with a heavier government burden.

“The New Deal policies extended the Great Depression by seven years. We should not follow that model of failure,” said Mitchell. “The 1930s are a roadmap of what not to do, because all the [government] interference, all the intervention, the higher tax rates, the increases in government spending kept our economy from recovering. Politicians got in the way of the private sector.”

Historian Alan Brinkley of Columbia University has written extensively on the New Deal and its lessons for today.

“The [New Deal] spending was never large enough to compensate for the loss of wealth that the depression had created,” said Brinkley. “If you want to counteract a severe recession, you have to take big measures to generate economic activity. And I think that is what the stimulus package is designed to do.”

While everyone has an opinion on the stimulus package it is clear to me is that ultimately what will pull us out of the economic crisis to a large degree is entrepreneurs. Therefore, with the information I have as of this writing of the post I agree with Sir Richard Branson.

Never before has there been such opportunity for new businesses to start out of the necessity to creatively think to make money. Our greatest growth whether it be financially or personally is when the pain is so great we are forced to make a change.

*Source quotations above By Michael Bowman Washington 11 February 2009