How does a stimulus help the economy?

Carolyn Lochhead claims that the stimulus is called a must. I wonder if she’s taken a basic economics course.

Her opening sentence: “The Obama stimulus, as history will know it, is change you can believe in.” Change? Are you kidding me? The Bush administration did the exact same thing. EXACT. SAME. THING. Nobody can name one serious difference between the Bush “stimulus” and the upcoming Obama stimulus. And we should, by now, realize that the Bush stimulus was a complete failure. I agreed with Ron Paul in predicting, back when it was first even mentioned, that (1) it would pass and (2) it would do terrible harm to the economy. And that has absolutely been the case.

You might wonder to yourself: if the harm is so obvious, why did the Bush administration push the stimulus so hard? And why is Obama doing the same thing?

I can easily think of a few possible reasons.

• They believe in big government. Big government, pro-war Republicans have far more in common with the Democrats than with my beliefs.
• It’s an excuse for growing and expanding the government, which they work for. They don’t work for us, the people. They work for the bureaucracy.
• It’s politically popular to make it look like Washington cares about us. That they’re taking serious action and “working” for us.
• Most people have a poor understanding of economics. They don’t understand that it’s us, the people, who create jobs and create wealth.

Here’s a good resource if you’d like to learn more about economics.

“The stimulus aims not just to revive the economy, but to shift the role of government, from a vastly increased participation in education and health care to federal investments in science, technology, mass transit and alternative energy.”

How can you think this is a good thing? Is the U.S. Federal Department of Education doing such a great job? Are homeschoolers worse off than kids in public education? Don’t you realize that it’s the government’s interference in health care that has driven up the cost? The reason why technology is so awesome today (think of the transistor, iPod, 802.11 wireless, multicore processors, netbooks, iPhone) is competition between private companies. When the government gets involved, people suffer. Technology suffers. Costs increase. Wastefulness goes through the roof. Businesses are deemed “too big to fail” (a ridiculous notion). Poor performers can’t be fired. Superstar engineers are restricted from innovating. Competition is considered “greedy.”

Lochhead: “There are plenty of experts who say it won’t, and plenty who say it will.”

Name one expert who says it will. Someone who the government isn’t printing cash for.

There are many examples of other countries that have gone on this path already — it should go without saying that it doesn’t work. Zimbabwe. Iceland. Look it up.