Stimulus nonsense

Back when I was your age - OK, I’m 56, so date yourself accordingly - there was a popular English rock band called The Who.

All the coverage of Barack Obama’s ‘stimulus program’ reminds me of a line from an old Who song: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

The new boss, Obama, is pushing an $825 billion ‘stimulus’ program. If enacted, the federal deficit will jump by a trillion dollars.

The old boss, George W. Bush, cranked the deficit by hundreds of billions during his term in office.

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Didn’t someone say something about “Change” during the campaign? Three weeks into Obama’s term, have we seen change? No. We’ve seen deficit spending as usual, or beyond usual.

Yes, the nation’s economy is on the ropes, and some sort of federal jump-start is prudent. The federal government is wise, in the short term, to spend tax dollars to create jobs. Large amounts of Obama’s ‘stimulus’ have absolutely nothing to do with jobs creation. How does $50 million for the National Endowment For the Arts create jobs? Who goes to work with the $400 million in the “stimulus” plan for global warming research?  Does $650 million for digital TV conversion create jobs? No, it doesn’t. Maybe the unemployed who have nothing better to do than sit home and watch TV get a better picture.

The Obama stimulus plan is larded with pork-barrel spending that your kids and mine will repay, someday. Trillion-dollar budget deficits are unsustainable. Both Bush’s budget and Obama’s are a road to long-term national financial ruin.

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

 And the title to that long-ago Who song, if memory serves?  “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”  Yeah, right.