The New Deal- Part Deux

The New Deal Part Deux It’s no wonder why so many Americans are aghast at President Obama’s plans for the country’s economic recovery. The $800 billion stimulus package so closely resembles Roosevelt’s New Deal, another swollen bureaucratic plan that inevitably did not bring our country out of the Depression. The climate of today is so similar to that of the late 1930’s. The United States is just coming off the high of a bull-market. Housing prices were at an all-time high and with the ever-growing supply of credit, many Americans were living comfortably beyond their means. The crash was inevitable, as housing prices declined, people finally had reached the day of reckoning. As a result of foreclosures the banks needed a hefty hand-out from Uncle Sam in order not to collapse. Ah there’s the rub, and the major conflicting element from the economic collapse of the 1930s and today, the government did not step in and as one former president put it, ‘sacrifice free market principles in order to save the economy.’ So without any sort of regulations or stipulations the government began to indiscriminately dole out money to the reckless and failing banking institutions. And just a few months later, the hemorrhaging continues, as the monies lost to the banks have gone unaccounted for- Ineptitude on the Federal level to the nth degree. So getting back to the New Deal Part Deux, I pose a question- If history teaches us that government expansion, public works projects, and bureaucratic fluff programs do not bring a capitalist society out of an economic quagmire, then why do we have a President and his democratic Congress proposing one that eclipses the New Deal tri-fold? I’ve racked my brain trying to figure out why, and the only reasonable explanation that I can come up with, is that this ‘stimulus package’ is solely based on government expansion and the need for politicians to slap each other on the back for various projects that are basically the equivalent of a magnificently embroidered hole in the donut. Economists are warning that all of the plans that are supposed to stimulate the economy will have the opposite effect. As the professor of economics at Harvard University said, “The plan to finance health insurance premiums for the unemployed would actually increase unemployment by giving employers an incentive to lay off workers rather than pay health premiums during a time of weak demand.” (too bad Barry didn’t absorb any of this prof’s logic when he was frolicking at Harvard *cue lights and trumpets*) Even the public works projects, building infrastructure would be a slow crawl, the large bulk of the stimulus wouldn’t even provide jobs in 09’ or 10’. Don’t even get me started on the pork or the fact that the tax cuts aren’t even that, but discriminate welfare. The absence of logic in this thing knows no bounds. I am grateful to the Republican Congress who came forth and tried to take a stand against this plan for governmental obesity, but alas too little too late. The Democratic oligarchy is going to push The Crappy Deal through, we just have to brace ourselves and be vigilant in our opposition. “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.” -Thomas Jefferson