Quote:
Originally Posted by Gozer
To me, it looks like the Dems saying "If we were in power we would have spent money on this instead of a war."
Understandable, but irresponsible.
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Well half of it anyway. The dems dont' really want to waste an opportunity to spend money when the American Public seem to be on side for this. Imagine the headlines had a lot of these expenditures taken place a few years ago.
I also take issue with the rationale for the stimulus, because ultimately for it to actually have the effect they are looking for the only efficient vehicle of disbursement of these funds quick enough would be for them to load bombers full of cash and start dumping it from the skys over the nation. By the time the effect of this is felt the economy will already be on it's way to recovery and any job losses they will have hoped to prevent would have already happened. Inflation will be the new buzzword as government contracts will bid up the prices for materials also demanded by the free market. The speed in which the bill was drafted has also ensures that there will be corruption and mismanagement of funds to gross proportions.
With all that said the one good thing to come of this is that it is a message to the people out there that really don't make rational economic decisions for themselves. For anyone so deathly afraid of spending any money for fears of the Next Great Depression, this signals to them that maybe just maybe this will only be a moderate recession and that amid the doom and gloom it's okay to make purchases and continue on life as usual and that most likely things will work out alright for them individually. The marcro effect of people feeling more at ease could push people out of 'batton down the hatches' mode and bring us out of recession quicker.
I only wish it didn't come at the expense of an entire future generation's tax burden, a rivival of Kaynesian economics, and an unwarrented tarnishing in the public's opinion of free-market economics. I have a feeling that the opportunity cost of all of this is immense. Considering that recessions are a normal function of the business cycle and generally come along every 10 or so years, it's dangerous to set a precident of handcuffing the financial capabilty of an entire future generation to prevent short-term economic pain. Also I would like to add that even Kaynes himself suggested that governments cut back in good times, in practice the cut backs come too late and in too small numbers to fully compensate the large expenditures made while being justified in his name.