Sound and Fury for Bigger Government
Investors Business Daily (IBD) has just posted a great column by Thomas Sowell who focuses on what Congress and the Administration are really trying to do with the so-called ‘stimulus’ bill. Sowell points out that if the Washington politicians wanted to kick start the economy, they would cut taxes since spending, as they now propose -- see yesterday’s growls -- involves “long, drawn-out processes to put money into circulation,” and is akin to “mailing a letter to the fire department to tell it that your house is on fire.”
Sowell then asks, “What are the Beltway politicians buying with all the hundreds of billions of dollars they are spending?” His answer:
“They are buying what politicians are most interested in — power.
In the name of protecting the taxpayers' investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank and, before it is all over with, all sorts of other people how to do the work they specialize in, and for which members of Congress have no competence, much less expertise.
“This administration and Congress are in a position to do what Franklin Roosevelt did during the Great Depression of the 1930s — use a crisis of the times to create new institutions that will last for generations.
“To this day, we are still subsidizing millionaires in agriculture because farmers were having a tough time in the 1930s.
“We have the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) taking reckless chances in the housing market that have blown up in our faces today, because FDR decided to create a new federal housing agency in 1938.”
Listen to Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute’s Center for Freedom and Prosperity explain why the ‘stimulus’ bill is bad policy. Watch the video: