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Scaremongering Continued

By Doug Bandow on 2.10.09 @ 7:43AM

Just spend money, lots of money, is the president's message on the "stimulus" package.  Failing to act "could turn a crisis into a catastrophe," he said yesterday.  "The Republicans who have been blocking action are courting disaster," intoned the New York Times.  Right.  This liberal wish list, with much of the money unlikely to be spent for months or years, is necessary to save the economy.

Of course, this was the same con used by the late and unlamented Bush administration.  When the House rejected the TARP bail-out, the stock market fell.  So the administration prophesied disaster if Congress didn't act.  Congress passed TARP, and the stock market fell. Oh, never mind ...  Since then it has been obvious that no one knew what they were doing with all of that money.

Now we are doing the same thing all over again.  Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson captured the essence of the Obama program:

This will sound ridiculous, but the fact is that the details of Obama's plan don't matter that much.

It is ridiculous, but that's what the legislation is all about.  Just open the financial floodgates and hope that something good happens.  Don't bet on it!  At least, that's the lesson of past government boondoggles.