Just Say No to the "Stimulus" Bill: Big Government Spending Cannot End the Recession

It never has; and never will.

According to Dominick T. Armentano, professor emeritus in economics at the University of Hartford, the federal government cannot spend us out of our economic quagmire.

The experience in the 1930s is instructive. Even though federal government spending increased from $9.8 billion in 1934 to $14.2 billion in 1940, the unemployment rate in 1940 was still a staggering 14.6%. A 45% increase in New Deal spending in six years did not end the Depression.

Mr. Armentano is not alone. More than 200 economists from a countless number of top-flight universities signed an open letter countering Obama's claims that big government spending will work.

More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s.

This is not me speaking. This comes from a bevy of experts far more intelligent than I (heck, I have tennis shoes smarter than I am).

It is time to put aside grandiose plans of some newfangled New Deal and do what works. Cut taxes, cut regulations, cut government waste and abuse. Let the American people spend their money on what they deem essential and growth of business and the economy will quickly follow.

It worked in the 1960s, 80s, 90s, and the 2000s.

Massive government spending has never helped fix an ailing economy.

Fun Facts About the Economic "Stimulus" Bill

Some fun facts about the Obama/Pelosi economic "stimulus" package, titled American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (HR 1 2009/01/29).

After some ruthlessly thorough research (using the Search feature in Adobe Acrobat), I have come up with the following non-financial facts about this package.

(Oddly enough, in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the word "reinvestment" appears only twice, both in reference to the title of the bill; "recovery" appears 1 time in relation to this package.)

Experts agree that cutting taxes will stimulate the economy. In this 680 page behemoth, there is not a single reference to:

• tax cut
• capital gains
• income tax
• business tax
• alternative minimum tax
• increased revenue

We are all told that this is a bill to stimulate job growth. Yet, the term "job growth" never appears in the bill.

• "job" appears only 17 times
• "job creation" appears only 4 times
• "jobs" appears only 8 times
• "job stimulus" appears 0 times

And how about the economic recovery?

• "economic recovery" appears 1 time (in a definition of what this bill would do)
• "economic stimulation" 0
• "economic stimulus" appears 3 times (2 referring to the Econimic Stumulus Act of 2008)

Yet "funds provided" appears 58 times.

• "funds appropriated" appears 26 times
• "funds received" by 9 times (not once where the feds are on the receiving end)

"Program" appears 327 times.

My Search feature must have malfunctioned after searching for all the ways that the bill hands out dough; my search for "pork" came up empty. Yet, I know that pork appears on just about all of the 680 pages.

So once again, I have to ask the question, where's the stimulus? Where's the recovery?

There's nothing in here but piggies!