Posted on 01/07/2009 5:34:23 AM PST by Kaslin
Barack Obama has dubbed his behemoth fiscal stimulus proposal the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." But if truth in advertising were required of White House plans, only one title would fit the trillion-dollar-plus-and-growing bill: The Generational Theft Act of 2009.
President-elect Obama was at his most candid when he told the country Tuesday that we face massive deficits for the foreseeable future. "Potentially we've got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come," he said, "even with the economic recovery that we are working on."
But one word is glaringly out of place in that warning. It's the word "even." Washington will saddle future generations with unprecedented debt because of the economic interventions Obama is planning, not despite them.
Think this through. We are now 13 months into the current recession. Since World War II, none of the recessions that have hit the U.S. economy have lasted more than two years. Most have lasted 12 months. The new mega-injections of government "investments" championed by Obama are intended to "break the momentum" of a recession we're probably more than halfway through suffering.
This is not to suggest that the economic picture is all sunshine and roses. Quite the opposite. Our fundamental ill is too much spending and borrowing and too little saving. It's going to take years to recover from the housing mess. Washington continues to encourage ever more ill-considered lending in a misguided attempt to stave off needed market corrections. The currently proposed combination of a nationwide infrastructure spending orgy plus tax-cut bribes does nothing to remedy that.
To paraphrase a previous Democratic administration: It's the timing, stupid. Keep in mind that the Democrats' stimulus timetable pushed through the House last fall proposed $34 billion in new, "ready to go" infrastructure spending -- only $9.8 billion of which could be spent in 2009. As writer Brian Faughnan points out:
"While it's unclear so far exactly how much infrastructure spending will be included in Obama's stimulus package, it will clearly run into the hundreds of billions. As Democrats broaden their definition of projects that are 'ready to go,' they will by definition slow the rate at which funds are spent. When President Obama signs his stimulus bill into law, it will already be five months further into the recession than when [the Congressional Budget Office] reported on the last Democratic bill -- and thus five months along toward being wasteful and counterproductive spending. He will also be signing a much larger bill, with a much smaller percentage of 'front-loaded' spending."
Moreover, despite Obama's earnest-seeming pledge to block all earmarks, there will be an inevitable lard-up of the stimulus. When has there not?
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled openness to the plan over the weekend as long as the GOP gets nominal input and kabuki hearings. The lard-up will guarantee that future capital is diverted to superfluous pork projects ("green jobs") and away from productive private enterprise. Instead of basic roads and bridges, infrastructure spending will go to bloated unions overseeing pie-in-the-sky construction projects like the $30 billion-plus high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which California officials fully expect to be funded.
Bottom line: Obama's prescription for economic pain will at most be useless in encouraging short-term growth, while ensuring anemic longer-term growth for the next decade (and beyond) at the expense of Obama's kids and my kids and yours.
The truly bold thing for Obama to do would be to tell the panic-mongers and boondoggle-seekers to shove it, and to tell taxpayers to ride out the rest of the tough times while he gets Washington's own economic house in order.
Instead, it's more of the same old, same old mortgaging of our children's future for the sake of present political crisis management.
“We are now 13 months into the current recession”
Please correct me if I’m wrong but is not a recession defined and 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth???...and if so, didn’t the 2nd quarter of 2008 have 2-3% positive growth???......would that not make the current recession only 6-7 month long at best???
I am not an economist but something sound off
An individual trying to solve his credit problems by simply spending more usually ends up in front of a judge.
Of course not! Wealthy leftists get to keep everything they have and their children will be well-taken care of for generations to come. No problem.
Generational warfare has become the conservative counter to class warfare. Sticking to the facts of things would be more productive.
what i don’t understand is why we were having $400 billion dollar defecits when there was no recession
I agree that we have to be careful and not descend into gen warfare. But we Gen Xrs are screwed and screwed royally. I have a kid who's almost a year old and another on the way, and I was just told by my employer that I have to take a 2.5% pay cut. I have a business on the side but times are tough now and our products aren't moving like they used to. What little retirement money I had was decimated. My mortgage isn't crazy, and thank God we didn't have much debt to begin with (and we have tightened the belt and are feverishly paying off what's left), but I'm concerned about losing my job. I am fully expecting in the next few years hyperinflation and a currency collapse. I am going to bed at night thinking about what I can do to feed my family in the event of shortages, loss of income, etc. I am furiously reading up on planting crops, raising animals, storing food for the winter--because that's what I expect to have to be doing in the next decade.
I completely understand lots of Boomers worked hard for what they earned and deserve a happy retirement, but the fact is that their retirement is on *our* backs now, and thanks to Roe v. Wade, there are tens of millions less of us than there should be to shoulder the load. This country is going to see a LOT of ticked off Gen Xrs and Gen Yrs in the next few years--who believe that our futures were stolen right out of our hands.
Well, if you could experience how average people lived just fifty years ago then you might feel more blessed than screwed.
Someone should bring back the song, Que Sera, Sera. People have never been certain about the future.
A good point. My parents lived through the war in Italy...which was worse than the Depression here. And I’m a history buff of the colonial period, which weren’t no picnic either.
It’s all in God’s hands. Thanks for giving me perspective. :)
My father came here from Calabria about a hundred years ago. Those people had diddly and squat in terms of material goods.
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