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.
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).
