Checks from the Government! It must be an Election Year

President Bush is promising $150 billion to taxpayers, with the stated goal of jump starting the economy. That's right. $150 billion. Sounds like a lot, but our economy is worth 14,000 billion dollars. Thats like giving a dollar and change for every hundred dollars we spend. Its effect on our economy would be negligible. But its effect on our budget deficit would not be negligible. Taking this money in the form of debts owed to foreign countries in order to provide a stimulus that will probably not have an effect on a recession that still may not happen is stupid, and deeply immoral.

Stupid and immoral? Naturally the Democrats want in on that action. Of course, Democrats want this money to go to their favorite constituents: poor people. Never mind that poor people pay barely any taxes in the first place, and take more income from the government in the form of Welfare, Unemployment, Medicaid, subsidized housing, etc.

Interestingly, Hillary Clinton also want to use some of the money to "invest" in alternative energy sources. That sounds good. But look deeper. Hillary Clinton's plan goes beyond injecting money into research. She wants to subsidize them and start building factories. That would certainly be good for people who want manufacturing jobs, as well as whatever companies lobby hard enough to receive government pork. But it also rewards inefficient methods (photovoltaic solar panels) which can be produced in large scale now over potentially revolutionary techniques like flexible film solar cells. In doing this, Clinton is actually damaging our nation's ability to innovate.

Clearly this is stupid. But immoral? Yes. Borrowing money (for P.R. stunts) today to be payed off by future generations is deeply immoral. Our leaders are digging us ever deeper into debt. They don't give two shits. They got elected. Thats all they care about.