CBO Says Doing Nothing Better than Stimulus, Looking Long-Term

The Washington Times states that a Congressional Budget Office report suggests that the long-term impact of the stimulus package will be negative for growth - moreso than doing nothing.

This suggests that the nonpartisan government budget group is saying, "Don't make a long-term mistake for a short-term gain."

Is the stimulus package short-sighted? And if so, why is the consensus among economists that we should do a Keynesian-style stimulus package?

I don't understand this very well. But it seems that the long-term impact on economic growth will be problematic.

Maybe the reason we are arguing for passage is because we're trying to avoid greater long-term problems related to the onset of an economic depression.

I'm open to suggestions.

Update 2/6 at 11:04 AM: Here's the actual letter from CBO. It doesn't read the way the Times article suggests that it reads - much more hedging and hesitation and non-committal stuff in there, including statement that this is uncharted territory and we really don't know how the stimulus package will work. The CBO estimate is purely hypothetical and trajectory, but is based on past experience that gov't spending can, in the long-term, lead to private-sector contraction (see: Great Society, Bush Recession #1).

Of course, given this fact, we have to ask why we ran up ginormous deficits during the Reagan and Bush years (41 & 43). Blaming Democrats is a bit too easy... the bills passed and they were signed into law.

I'm still pretty convinced that the GOP approach is pure obstructionism.