I Was Wrong

In an earlier post of this morning, I was betting that the combined House and Senate stimulus plan would exceed a trillion dollars. I was wrong. It appears that restraint prevailed, and the final bill will actually be lower than either the original Senate or House versions.

Americans will only be in hock for $789 billion and not the over $800 billion of either the Senate or House plans; or, worse yet, the trillion that was being bandied around by the news (and by me). While I am happy about the restraint, I don't think I can give a "Here! Here!" about all that money being spent for a stimulus package that is neither timely nor truly ubiquitous in its nature.

We can only wait and see if the concept of Keynesian Economics and the belief that big and bigger government can drive our economy into prosperity; even though that bigger government has to take as much or more from our economy to drive the economy. We'll just have to see if sapping this country's wealth, through a form of redistribution, will actually work. My guess is not. That's because it didn't work during the Great Depression by both Hoover and FDR and it didn't work in the "lost decade" in Japan. My bet is that we will wind up with even higher unemployment; a bigger debt for future generations to bear; wildly unpopular inflation in just a few years; and finally, more, rather than less, dependence on foreign oil. I will be surprised if even half the monies for infrastructure are spent within the next two years due to environmental and legal delays; initial cost under-estimation, and in-progress cost overruns; and, just bad planning and implementation. But, I was wrong this morning and I might just be wrong again. We'll have to see.