Published: December 18, 2008 05:23 pm            

Pork projects infest stimulus package

If we’re not careful, this bailout is going to need a bailout.

As word spread that the feds were ready to flick the ON switch on the Magic Money Machine, a motley swarm of prospective “clients” began to form.

Investment firms and other big financial institutions were the initial beneficiaries of the Bush-Obama Goodwill Tour, but it wasn’t long before other folk queued up for their goodies. (Among the notables were the National Football League and NASCAR.)

Then along came the Big 3 U.S. automakers, who want billions of dollars to serve as a “bridge to the future,” a future in which they will suddenly begin building more cars Americans want and can afford to drive.

The Big Stimulus plan envisioned by President-elect Obama continues to take shape, and more folks keep showing up with their hands out.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors visited Capitol Hill recently, wish list in hand. In this case the wish list took the form of more than 11,000 “infrastructure” projects valued at more than $73 billion.

But don’t kid yourself that these projects are of any measurable importance to the nation as a whole. It is a mammoth grab bag of pork barrel projects.

How about $20 million for a sports complex in Henderson, Neb., or $15 million for the Midway Park Family Life center in Euless, Texas?

One has to be the most devoted of Keynesians to believe that a massive bout of federal spending aimed at projects such as these will truly hasten the nation’s economic recovery.

The federal government would be better off cutting spending and taxes, while allowing the market to sort out the various messes that bad policy has helped create.

We feel increasingly lonely arguing that.



The Daily Citizen

        

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