Democrats Pass the "Me First" Bill as a Payoff to Government Employees Unions

Welcome to the Anti-Capitalist, Centrally-Planned Economy

George Bush and his merry gang of Wall Street looters sent capitalism reeling.  Now the neo-socialist Democrats under Obama are finishing the job.  Can't have pampered government workers taking pay cuts like the rest of America, noooo way!

Not only is the federal government giving states more money to pay off government unions, it's also dictating how it is to be spent:

Upset that Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry put some of his state's stimulus money in reserve, Democrats stipulated that Texas can receive education money only if it spends some of the earlier stimulus funds.

Congress is sending a message to Perry, said Representative Sheila Jackson Lee: "Don't fool with money for children and education."(Reuters)

Hugo Chavez would be proud of comrade Sheila.  Have you wondered what the progressive statist alternative to capitalism would look like?  This is it!

Since the beginning of the recession, the number of unemployed has increased by more than 8 million people. For $800 billion, we could have handed every one of these people a check for $100,000—which gives a sense of what was possible with that much money and just how inefficient the actual program was. (Weekly Standard)

This is what a centrally-planned economy powered by a government "jobs program" looks like.  Lawrence B. Lindsey, in the same Weekly Standard article, shows that the stimulus is a failure as judged by the White House's own standards.  No wonder White House economist Christina Romer is escaping reality and slinking back to Berkley.

The answer, of course, is free-market capitalism
Individuals pursuing their self-interests, or "greed," as the modern day socialists in our midst call it.  Government getting out of the way and freeing up capital to be used by free persons as they see fit.

Watch the great Milton Friedman school Phil Donohue on the virtues of capitalism.  One of the rare times Phil has ever been left speechless...

Uncle, Can you Spare a Dime?

AmericanFirstPrinciples.org

The number of individuals employed under the Constitution of the United States will be much smaller than the number employed under the particular States. There will consequently be less of personal influence on the side of the former than of the latter. -- James Madison, Federalist 45

Another quaint idea stood on its head by 100 years of progressivism...

Senators John McCain and Tom Coburn, doing the job liberal senators just won’t do, have produced a catalog of “stimulus” waste.  Liberals and their press apologists are responding with howls of indignation.

Regardless of the value of exotic ant study, or the merits of giving monkeys cocaine, questions remain:

Why is the federal government providing money for private enterprise projects?

Why do the states have to go begging to the federal government to replace municipal sidewalks?

What if the federal government confined itself to its constitutionally mandated responsibilities instead of trying to “run the country,” running us all broke in the process?

Liberal use of that phrase, “run the country” belies the progressive poison that has leached into our national bloodstream. To progressive anti-constitutionalists, we are subjects to be rewarded by paternalistic philosopher kings raining pennies from Washington.

This perversion encourages state subordination to the federal government and fosters dependency, and that’s just the way progressives imagine it should be.

Fight the Power!
Imagine a world where the states kept more of the tax money of their constituents and took care of their own issues, instead of Coloradans paying for a project in Washington.

At times like this it is helpful to read the founders, while pondering boiling frogs...

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce...”

The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. -- James Madison, Federalist 45

There is much wisdom in how the founders set things up. Local and state governments are better positioned to tailor their efforts to the needs of the people. At just under 5 million Americans, we were not a one-size-fits-all nation when the US Constitution was ratified, and we sure as hell ain’t a one-size-fits-all nation now.

“I see,… and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power…  -- Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1825. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, ME 16:146

Imagine what Jefferson would say today...

Why The Stimulus Isn't Working

Because it's not a stimulus

Keynesian stimulus has never worked.  That includes World War II.  Yes, wartime production brought us out of the depression, but government didn't create consumer demand, it was the demander.  And it demanded tools of war because our existence was threatened.  We needed the materiel that our industry produced, and we used it to a good end.

What our government is doing now has stimulated nothing.  Government can throw some confiscated money to those barely treading water, but that is not stimulus; it is a palliative.

Political payoffs to failed state and local governments border on the criminal, allowing them to dodge the consequences of their financial malfeasance for a few more years. 

Weatherization, windmills and cash for clunkers misallocate resources and distort the market.  They cause inefficiencies and delay the creative destruction that ushers in economic recovery. If you want a 21st century economy, you've got to allow the market to prune the 20th century branches.

If Government must get involved...
Building a hundred nuclear power plants would come the closest to a government "investment." (For a contrary view, see John Stossel's blog.)  It would put people to work for 5-10 years building something we need. Once built, we would reap the benefits of bountiful home-grown electricity. Unfortunately, we're going the Don Quixote route.


Eat Yourself Thin
Economics professor Mark Hendrickson has written the best summary on why Keynesian stimulators (Krugman, Stiglitz, et al) and the Central Planners at the White House are all wrong.

The massive deficit spending of Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s didn't stop the Great Depression. In fact, despite FDR spending more money in his first five years in office than all 31 prior presidents combined. 

His Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau stated in 1939 that "[w]e are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... I say after eight [sic] years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!"

He also mentions Japan's failed Keynesian decades and reminds us that economic history did not start in the 1930s. We had crashes and panics before FDR came along, and we got out of them without government intervention.  Cato has a very short example Here. 

Read these informative articles and do your part to push back against the liberal fairy tales.  "Spend your way to prosperity" makes as much sense as "Eat yourself thin."