Green v. Economy, round 2

In contrast to my posting last Sunday about a growing chorus who say we should use spending on environmental efforts to help us out of the economic mess, but also in contrast to those who say that any spending on the environment hurts the economy, Robert Samuelson, who writes about economic issues in Newsweek has a different reason. He says the economy needs fast and nimble action and trying to bundle that help with green issues will only slow things down. That's because most green issues will cause a great deal of debate about tradeoffs and that debate is the speed killer. His opinion about health care is the same. Better to get the economy humming, then have a proper debate on these other important and vital issues.

I'm not quite convinced. There are many green issues that won't trigger a long debate (and Samuelson says installing wind turbines as one, but only one, of them). It could take a long time to get the economy humming and the environment can't wait that long. The debate can get started even while tending to the economy. I do agree that some issues that need a long debate and we shouldn't rush the debate simply to get policies passed.