Dishonest – But it does not Matter

President Obama signed the stimulus bill today. The bill is essentially a huge lie passed with a number of already broken promises. It will not stimulate the economy. How could it? Most of the money will not be spent for years. But it will vastly expand the federal government, and as I explain in my forthcoming book Preserving Democracy, as government grows, liberty by definition must decrease. It will also place a huge and quite possibly impossible burden on our children and grand children.

While the bill weighs in at $787 billion, even that is deceptive. There will of course be the interest on this that also has to be paid. But then there are a whole range of hidden costs. To give just one example, Senate Majority Leader Reid got his pet project of a high speed train to run between Disneyland and Las Vegas. Obama told us that the bill would be “timely, targeted and temporary.” Ok, the train is certainly targeted to please Senator Reid.

As for timely and temporary, the train will need to cross some of the most environmentally sensitive land in the nation and thus it going to have to go through years of environmental studies and lawsuits before the “shove ready” project could even start. Given the state of environmental laws, it is very possible that the process could take decades before it could start, if it ever can. But perhaps Obama is thinking ahead, and this is actually a stimulus plan not for the current recession, but for two or three recessions from now.

Then there is the actual cost. Given the government’s track record, is there anyone who seriously believes that in the end the train, even if it is built, will only cost $8 billion? Given the government’s track record at estimating costs and the environmental hurdles the project must get over, the cost is likely to be several times that.

The train is just one of the numerous items in this bill, which is so large, written so quickly, and changed so frequently that people are still going through it trying to find out what it actually says. Even when they read it, there is so much money spent so quickly that often, it is not at all clear what it is being spent for. Example: “BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS OPERATION OF INDIAN PROGRAMS For an additional amount for ‘Operation of Indian Programs’, for workforce training programs and the housing improvement program, $40,000,000.” Twenty-seven words and $40 million is spent.

For the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General, $20 million is given away with: “For an additional amount for ‘Office of Inspector General’, $20,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2012.” Now just how is giving $20 million to the EPA’s Inspector General’s office supposed to stimulate the economy, particularly if, like most government agencies they tend to horde the money until close to the time it expires, which will be over 3 ½ years from now.

There are over a thousand pages of such giveaways. Obama said that there were no earmarks in the bill, but if that is even technically true, in reality the bill is nothing but earmarks. It is basically a huge list of every pet project, pork, and bit of spending that democratic senators and congressmen have been wanting. Most will have little simulative effect other than to stimulate government and to the select few whom the democrats wished to reward.

The bill is not timely, targeted, nor temporary. It is not free from earmarks. Lobbyists were not excluded from the process, and in fact received the bill before congressional staff. It was not posted on line for 48 hours so people could review it, but was rushed to a vote. And it is not a stimulus bill.

But, at least in the short term, none of this matters. It’s Obama, and that is all that really matters. And after all it is not as if this is real money. This is government money, the money that just magically appears whenever it is needed, so that politicians can give it away.

There is, however, a real sense of irony here. For most of Bush’s term and especially in the last year or so as the surge worked and Iraq ceased to be a major issue, the democrats have complained about how Bush increased the debt, and spent too much money. I agreed with them, though admittedly for different reasons. Yet now, in the euphoria of their victory, (after all, as both Obama and Pelosi have reminded us they won), they are going on a spending spree the likes of which we have never seen.

Unfortunately, they are not spending magic money, but real dollars – dollars that must come from somewhere, either in higher taxes, or in increased inflation, or a mixture of the two. The sobering fact is that the party will end, and the bill will come due. Somebody is going to have to pay it. And as bad as things are now, when that happens, things are likely to get a lot worse.