Posted by
Rich from NW Indiana on Thursday, February 12, 2009 2:16:13 PM
Today's Chicago Tribune poll question is:
Do you think the stimulus bill will turn the economy around? This is the answer I posted.
The "stimulus" bill will not help the economy. Large amounts of new government spending is the last thing we should be doing during a recession. It has been tried in the U.S. and abroad countless times and it has always failed. It has never worked anywhere it has been tried, so why would it work now? In fact it will make this recession last far longer then it would have, had we done nothing. An example is the large governmental spending in Japan in the 1990's which didn't bring it out of a bad recession. It has been called the lost decade by many there.
The money will need to be repaid at some point. There is no such thing as a free lunch, especially if it is provided by the federal government. Taking more money out of the pockets of taxpayers to fund this, only will reduce investment and consumer spending. Plus it will make investing in government bonds less attractive as we add even more debt.
The reality is that our politicians do not believe in the free enterprise system and the free market. They think it needs to be controlled, refined into some weird shape and over-regulated. Large companies should be allowed to go out of business, opening opportunities to those who are better businesspeople. A GM factory (which has value even if GM goes out of business) in the hands of someone else would bring better cars then the ones offered by GM today. Thats how the free market works. When was the last time a new American automaker been founded lately? Answer, a long time (Saturn doesn't count), since its too difficult in today's economic climate.
I don't know how many times the Keyesian economic theory needs to be debunked. This is where people get the idea that the "stimulus" is a good idea. It has been disproved a number of times. However it is still popular with politicians and academics which keeps it around. Why do we have to keep trying to make something that doesn't work, work?
This bill should be called by what it is. The largest single pork bill ever!
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