850 Billion Ways to Say "You're Crazy!'

President-elect Obama has announced plans for an $850 billion stimulus package that is intended to jumpstart our economy but will more likely blow an H-Bomb sized hole in the federal deficit with little long term benefit for the country.

Why doesn't stimulus spending work? Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation put it succinctly:

Where does the government acquire the money it pumps into the economy? Congress does not have a vault of money waiting to be distributed: Therefore, every dollar Congress "injects" into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new spending power is created. It is merely redistributed from one group of people to another.

But don't tell that to the donkeys. After all, taxation and big government are how they roll and these days they are rolling.

Will dumping a few hundred billion dollars into American infrastructure reinvigorate our financial picture? No, frankly. It's not that our infrastructure couldn't use the boost, but there are better ways to do it than elevating the deficit to levels that will ultimately make us less economically secure.