Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: “We won the election. We wrote the bill.” “We” is Democrats, and boy, have they written a bill! We’re going to be paying the bill for a long, long time (825 billion dollars in the House version). Money does not grow on trees, nor can it be magicked up out of thin air. But remember that all this spending/borrowing from the future is supposed to create jobs and stimulate the economy:
Amtrak $1 billion (I thought Amtrak went out of business ten years ago!)
Child care subsidies $2 billion (Do I get some of this money since I care for my children. Bet not.)
National Endowment for the Arts $50 million
Global warming research $400 million (Haven’t we researched this to death? And isn’t the politically correct term “climate change” since we’re not sure anymore whether we’re warming or cooling?)
Carbon-capture demonstration projects $2.4 billion (Carbon-who, and why am I paying for it?)
More digital TV conversion coupons $650 million (Why, oh why, am I paying for you to get a TV converter box? And where are the jobs? Jobs for TV converter box manufacturers?)
Renewable energy funding $8 billion (If it’s not profitable now, it won’t be profitable after they’ve gone through the eight billion dollars.)
Mass transit $6 billion (“If you build it, they will come” has not proven to be true in the past. Why should it start to be true now?)
Modernizing Federal buildings $7 billion (The jobs will only last until the money runs out.)
And it’s not going to create jobs or keep you from losing yours.
Heritage Foundation: “It is worth remembering that the New Deal of the 1930s substantially and permanently increased the scope of the federal government as Congress and the President attempted to spend their way out of the Depression. After the stock market collapse in 1929, the Hoover Administration increased federal spending by 47 percent over the following three years. As a result, federal spending increased from 3.4 percent of GDP in 1930 to 6.9 percent in 1932 and reached 9.8 percent by 1940. That same year– 10 years into the Great Depression–America’s unemployment rate stood at 14.6 percent.”
Read more at
Wall Street Journal: A 40-Year WIsh List
US News and World Report: 10 Reasons to Whack Obama’s Stimulus Plan
Heritage Foundation: Infrastructure Spending Won’t Boost the Economy
I don’t usually write about politics and economics because I don’t know enough about economics in particular to argue intelligently. However, this disaster is obvious to even my limited knowledge of economics: if you’re broke, you can’t spend your way out of debt. And if you keep spending, the piper must eventually be paid —with interest.
Carbon-capture demonstration project?? I’m like you, I’m not an authority on economics, but I can’t help asking myself what happened to common sense. I can remember many many people advising me and my husband, when we were younger, to spend money we didn’t have and to “use other people’s money” (i.e. live on credit); to buy a house we couldn’t afford and take advantage of creative loans (e.g. , ARM, interest only, etc.); to buy new cars using home equity thereby reducing any equity we might have acquired in order to purchase something that depreciates. I’m glad we didn’t listen. We currently live debt free and we’ve done it without anyone bailing us out. Again, I’m not an authority on economics, but common sense and restraint sure seem to work. You’re right, “if you’re broke, you can’t spend your way out of debt” and the piper will indeed want to be paid with interest.