With all due respect, sir, that's (SET ITAL) not (END ITAL) the whole point. Even the "nonpartisan" Congressional Budget Office and your fellow Keynesians concede that not all spending has the same stimulative effect. But we know you know that, sir, and that you are not about to let this "crisis go to waste." You have loaded up this bill with your party's pent-up wish list of pet pork projects and political payoffs: $345 million for Agriculture Department computers, $650 million for TV converter boxes, $15 billion for college scholarships, and untold, obscene amounts for ACORN-like "community organizing" causes.
Making matters worse, the CBO concluded that the bill would hurt the economy more in the long run than if we did nothing. Even if the spending helped stimulate in the short run, there would be so much additional government debt within a few years that it would crowd out private investment.
Worse still, The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector says that of the $816 billion in new spending (based on the House bill), $264 billion (32 percent) of it "is new means-tested welfare spending," representing "about $6,700 in new welfare spending for every poor person in the U.S."
Outraged yet? Well, brace yourself, because Rector says: "The bill sets in motion another $523 billion in new welfare spending that is hidden by budgetary gimmicks. … The total 10-year extra welfare cost is likely to be $787 billion."
So here we are, poised to have this fraudulent, socialistic legislative monstrosity crammed down our throats that A) many reputable economists dispute will stimulate; B) is the type of disastrous remedy tried and failed in the 1930s and more recently in Japan and surely would exacerbate and prolong this recession; C) even Keynesians would agree contains non-stimulative pork; D) would plunge us so much further into debt that we should all be brought before criminal tribunals to answer to our children; and E) President Obama has ominously bragged is only a down payment on further Draconian measures he plans to unleash in the future.
Social commentators have observed that baby boomers are spoiled, self-indulgent narcissists. I'll say. If this legislation doesn't prove that, nothing will. When will we learn we are not gods who can spare ourselves of all pain with some magic bullet fired from our self-proclaimed genius?
Isn't it time we grow up, discard our hedonism, assume accountability and quit trying to buy our way out of this mess with our children's money?