What the Government Should Do

This is why the so-called “stimulus” package will not work. The biggest reason: it’s not meant to stimulate the economy. It’s meant to stimulate government growth and expansion. If you look at all the different provisions laid out in the stimulus plan, there are very few that can be justified for economic growth. Billions of dollars are being reserved for meaningless projects like STD preventive studies, renovating buildings like the Smithsonian, universal healthcare, free healthcare for illegal aliens, to name a few. The only people who benefit from this policy are those in high-ranking government positions. Here’s the thing: when a country is experiencing a recession, the worst possible thing the government can do is intervene and start a spending craze. Remember when the Democrats were freaking out at Bush’s intense spending? Well Obama’s proposed policies will far and away trump any spending during the Bush Administration. This enormous amount of money has to come from the taxpayers because we aren’t going to get anymore loans from China or other countries because the dollar has lost most its value. So multiple generations of Americans will be paying for these bailouts.

People like to compare Obama to FDR, and in many ways they’re alike. The Great Depression lasted seven years longer than it should have. The New Deal was not meant to bring the economy back to life, it was meant merely to ensure Democratic power for decades, as was the result. Obama’s plans are exactly the same. If he was really concerned about bringing the economy back to life, he would exert some discipline and allow the free market to correct itself. Many people don’t know about the depression in 1920. It had the potential to be just as bad as the Great Depression, but it was short-lived because the presidency at the time did not try and control the market. Result: the market turned around on its own. You know, businesses all over are cutting back to accommodate the slow economy. So why is the government expanding more than ever? Something to think about.

Japan went through a similar recession in the 90’s and tried a very similar stimulus package. What happened? Unemployment actually increased along with a huge national debt, and their economy has been crappy ever since. So I don’t understand why our government believes that it will work this time. The point of history is to learn from it to make a better future. Well, the New Deal was a disaster (despite what I learned in high school – I actually believed FDR was this amazing president until I learned more about him over the last couple years), Japan’s attempts failed, and this New New Deal will inevitably fail.

If Obama is insistent on pumping money into the economy, then he should do it in the form of tax cuts. That way the money comes back to the tax payers without increasing inflation by printing new money. The best thing he could do is cut the business tax rate – which is ridiculously high. With the tax rates so high – and Obama has promised to increase them – they have no incentive to expand and higher more people, which means no new jobs. But if they got a break and were encouraged to grow, then more jobs would be available and the economy would experience a huge jump start and begin its upswing. So that’s what I would do – cut the corporate tax rates and individual rates. The absolute worst thing to do in a struggling economy is increase spending and pump money into the system. You can’t spend your way out of a recession, you have to produce. Obama along with most of Washington doesn’t seem to understand that. And frankly, he’s got the same economic intelligence as his new dog. But it looks like we and many future generations will be paying for this egregious stimulus package.