Growls

George Will writes in his Washington Post column today that “congressional Democrats have turned the 647-page stimulus legislation into an excuse for something that never needs an excuse -- an exercise in wretched excess.” Unfortunately, he doesn’t make clear what he means by “wretched excess.”

Peter Ferrara, however, provides many examples of “wretched excess” in his American Spectator column yesterday, including:

“For example, the "stimulus" package includes $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts to help "the arts community throughout the United States." Wouldn't want our economy to get behind in the international arts competition. The government is going to borrow $50 million out of the private economy to spend on this, which will result in a net loss of economic output rather than a net gain.

“Another $2.1 billion is for Head Start, another program not previously known for stimulating the economy. A further $2 billion is to be spent on Child Care Development Block Grants, which provide day care. We are going to revive economic growth through the federal government spending billions on babysitting, rather than tax cuts for capital investment. A similar initiative involves $120 million to finance part-time work for seniors in community service agencies.

“Then there is $500 million to speed the processing of applications for Social Security disability claims. This has already created one net new job in the employment of a person within the Obama Administration assigned to figure out what this has to do with stimulating the economy.”

Investors Business Daily writes in an editorial: “Washington's attempt to spend us out of our economic doldrums gets more ambitious by the day . . . The long-range implications of this are alarming,” and go on to explain:

“Apart from the tax cuts in the bill, this political spending spree would require Washington to increase its plunder of the private sector (unless it plans to print the money and create an inflation risk).

“Already federal spending as a portion of the economy is at 21%, more than four times the rate from the pre-Depression 1920s. It is projected to grow to 29% of GDP in 2030 and 42% in 2050, the same year that state and local government spending is expected to hit 20% of GDP.

“Where will all that spending get us?

“Think of England, where the British government's share of local output and spending is now 70% in some regions. In the northeastern part of the country, the London Times reports, "the state is expected to be responsible for 66.4% of the economy this year, up from 58.7% when a similar study was carried out four years ago."

“Highly revealing is this fact: "When Labour came to power, the figure was 53.8%."

"In general, 49% of the United Kingdom economy is government spending. This trend has prompted some in the U.K. to wryly refer to their homeland as ‘Soviet Britain.’”

Additional resources, not to mention our previus growls, growls, and growls:

• Read the Stimulus -- "somebody needs to read it."

• Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimate of H.R. 1 (requires Adobe), the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the so-called stimulus bill.

• National Taxpayers Union’s Fight the Stimulus Hoax tool kit.

• The Wall Street Journal says, “You won't believe what's in that stimulus bill,” and put together “A 40-Year Wish List” of “just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.” To see just how much income redistribution is in the bill, check the following Wall Street Journal graph: