Economic stimulus? Since Bush’s 2001 tax cuts, 2 million jobs have been lost. But our leader assures us the new cuts will produce 1 million jobs by the end of 2004. Few agree with him.

Deepening deficits require revenues be raised by borrowing. Congress just had to raise the national debt ceiling.

The dollar’s value has fallen. A professional economist recently wrote in a respected conservative journal “…Bush’s irresponsible tax cuts, combined with his costly overseas aspirations, are poised to do irreparable harm to America’s economy and to our way of life.”

Consumer spending comprises two-thirds of our gross domestic product. Surpluses of consumer goods are generating the flood of sales fliers we’re receiving every day.

Will people getting $400 rebates rush out to spend it? Or those who get big cuts invest in enterprises promising little profit?

Meanwhile, the states are in desperate straits. Worst budget crisis since World War II, said Idaho’s governor recently. Teachers, hospital workers, state employees, police and firemen laid off; schools closing early, tuition increasing at state universities. And, the costs of unfunded mandated No Child Left Behind tests, security costs for terror alerts.

The bubble had burst as Bush came into office. He could’ve learned something from Hoover’s and FDR’s examples. During the Great Depression they funded large-scale public works.

National spending for infrastructure and public service is sorely needed now and would provide jobs for at least some of the millions out of work.

Do we have a hope?

Dorothy E. Prince, Auburn