Say Anything Blog

At least another $250 billion which, if passed and combined with the earlier “stimulus” spending spree, would put us over $1 trillion in government spending between the two bills alone.

That’s compelling evidence that the White House doesn’t believe the job market is mending nearly fast enough to keep unemployment from trending higher — or Democratic electoral prospects in 2010 from trending lower.

The summit is likely a table setter for Obama to announce Stimulus 2.0 (though he surely won’t use the word ’stimulus’) at his State of the Union address in January. Indeed, Harry Reid is already cooking up a plan in the Senate.

How much money are we talking about? Alec Phillips of Goldman Sachs calls $250 billion over three years a “conservative” estimate. And what might be in the bill? Look for more highway spending, more aid to state and local governments and some sort of business hiring tax credit.

All this represents a sharp departure in message from the White House, which has previously counseled patience. Let the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act work, Team Obama kept saying. Even as the unemployment rate blew past 8 percent — a level of joblessness that the stimulus was supposed to prevent — the White House stuck to its guns and dismissed the need for significant new job creation efforts.

Personally, I’m actually pretty glad that the Obama administration hasn’t attempted more government spending in the name of “economic rescue” to date.  Because we simply can’t afford it.  And, frankly, the best thing Obama and his fellow politicians could do for our economy at this point (at least the best first step) would be to stop doing things.

Stop the spending.  This is madness.  This isn’t stimulus.  Sure this spending generates some level of economic activity now (not very much, and not very efficiently) but only at the expense of massive amounts of future debt that must be paid off with interest.

This is like taking an advance on your credit card and calling it income.  Sure, you’ve got the money and you can spend it and get all sorts of stuff, but eventually you’ve got to pay that money back.  Again, with interest.

We don’t need more government spending.  We need to take our national credit card away from the politicians.