A Stimulus or More of the Same Old Same Old?

“Stimulus” 101 Update: The Trillion Dollar Spending Plan Passes House is a Heritage Foundation article. This is very telling:

The “Stimulus” Bills Your Family – $819 Billion is equivalent to borrowing $10,520 from EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA. This borrowed money is equivalent to what the average family spends on food, clothing, and health care in an entire year.

This alarming illustration of the magnitude of government spending is followed by the pithy observation that lawmakers are acting as if we would never have recessions if the government could prevent them through increased spending. What we actually are witnessing is vodoo economic policy. It takes the form of politicians behaving as if they have invented a means of avoiding age old growth/recession cycle patterns. But if the claims are grandiose the spending itself is rather ordinary. More for education, more for medicaid, more pork and more green spending. Perhaps some of the increases can be justified in and of themselves. But if authorizing more money for existing programs is the key to avoiding recessions, then it is most amazing that this cure was not discovered before.

What we have is another scam. Promises that cannot be fullfilled and which incur great costs. More on the real costs in the next blog on this subject.