[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Yahwe

I was debating with myself the response i would give to your latest brand of idiocy. It seems I am oft times criticised for being harsh. I am harsh when I judge posts on the basis of what they contain. So instead I shall be kind and presume an underlying intelligence not evidenced by the text:

Governments do not create booms. They do not create recessions. They do not end booms and they do not end recessions.

If you don't believe that governments can end recessions then perhaps you agree that calling this a 'stimulus' bill was, at best, misleading and thus there was no need to rush this bill through Congress with minimal consideration? That was pretty much my entire point.

Thus starting from a true basis we should ask the following:

During a recession, when a government finds it has money compared to everyone else, shouldn't a government spend that money?

Alas, our government doesn't actually have that money to spend. There's no money tree. Raising taxes is neither politically nor economically feasible at present, so all that's left is to borrow money which eventually will have to be repaid[*]. And as we're not likely to be running a budget surplus anytime soon, the debt will most likely have to be repaid by future generations. It may be that our need is so great that it justifies saddling our children with more debt (though I have yet to be convinced of that), but I see no reason to dress up such a horrible necessity as some sort of virtue.

We know that recessions will happen anyway. We know they will last as long as they will last. What on earth is the point of a government deciding to be the richest man on the titanic?

I repeat: there is no money tree.

Irresponsible borrowing is what got us into this mess. I don't see how it's going to get us out of it.

[*]The debt could also be monetized via inflation, but as someone who lived through the Carter years I would regard that as the worst of all possible scenarios.