Stimulus Package Nonsense

Here is a great article that says it like it is.

Stimulus Package Nonsense

By Walter E. Williams
CNSNews.com Commentary
January 31, 2008
Some Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls are preaching economic doom and gloom, disappearing middle class, and failing health care industry. What's their solution? The short answer is give them more control over our lives.

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The imaginary hobgoblin this time is the threat of an oncoming recession, even though it is by no means clear that the U.S. economy is in a recession. To head off a recession, politicians, including President Bush, are calling for a stimulus package.

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There are three ways government can get the money for a stimulus package. It can tax, borrow or inflate the currency by printing money. If government taxes to hand out money, one person is stimulated at the expense of another who pays the tax, who is unstimulated and has less money to spend. If government borrows the money, it's the same story. This time the unstimulated person is the lender who has less money to spend. And if government prints money, creditors, and then everyone else, are unstimulated. As my colleague Russell Roberts said in a NPR broadcast, "It's like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end. Funny thing -- the water in the shallow end doesn't get any deeper."

Go read the entire article. It is worth the time. It sounds like he might have read my rant, "Hang Onto Your Wallets".

Hat tip to HeavyHanded for pointing this out.