Goodbye

With this issue we move on to analyze the administration’s attempt to resuscitate the banking sector. We say goodbye to the "stimulus" package, understanding that we as a nation will receive little spark, little bang for the buck from this bill. Our readers know the details - much of the spending is delayed. Even for near-term spending the largest outlays amount to just writing checks to state governments. Finally, there is no evidence that gov’t spending creates a multiplier anyway, but plenty that it does not. What the bill did accomplish however is something on the order of $30,000 in new debt for every American household.

From Gary Becker, the 1992 Nobel laureate and professor of economics at the University of Chicago: "....political considerations are especially important in a spending package adopted quickly while the economy is reeling, and just after a popular president took office. Many Democrats saw the stimulus bill as a golden opportunity to enact spending items they've long desired. For this reason, various components of the package are unlikely to pass any reasonably stringent cost-benefit test." Indeed.

Despite a genuine emergency this bill is focused on dispensing goodies to Democrat interest groups; it is a fraud. Sen Charles Schumer (D, NY) called it "porky," an understatement if there ever was one. Our last blog under National Politics addressed the Democrat’s process; our title was "Shameful". Decent folk from the left have been betrayed. Their party has betrayed all of us.

Robert Craven