February 8, 2008
by George Benack
Our country has grown rife with pundits whose jobs depend on portraying simple situations as more complex than they really are. When pressed for straightforward answers like, “Who will pay for and why are we even considering this $150 billion stimulus package?”, they hem and haw or, lacking sensible justification for such an expenditure, tell us it’s too complicated for the average Joe to understand how economies like ours work, that it’s not the same as when a homemaker has to balance the household budget. Truth be told, in many ways it is the same. And that’s part of why we’re in the mess we’re in.
I remember being advised after the 9/11 attacks that the best way we could help NYC was to go shopping. This stimulus package is cut from the same cloth, except the obligation to repay this extravagance will rest squarely on the backs of our sons and daughters . . . and for what? A 23” foreign-made flat-panel TV purchased in the name of helping our country avoid a recession? Folks, that recession is here and has been here for quite some time, fueled by a non-sustainable energy policy and a shift to a service economy that produces fewer goods as a percentage of GNP than ever before.
The $1.3 trillion dollars we owe to China and the billions we’ve borrowed elsewhere for our spending party in Iraq has softened the blow for now but the hangover will be brutal. The cure for the ills of over-spending and over-borrowing is not more spending and borrowing. Instead of asking us to tighten our belts and bite down hard, the worst American president in my lifetime is recommending a little hair of the dog.
The underlying motive behind the widespread bi-partisan support in the House and Senate for this stimulus package amounts to little more than election-year bribery. Our elected representatives are doling out the same bread and circuses enjoyed by Romans during the final stage of that empire’s decline as it sank beneath the weight of too many wars, excessive spending and an unproductive citizenry addicted to slave labor.
Would I enjoy an extra $600 for a shopping spree? Sure. But I wouldn’t borrow the money from my children.
George Benack has been teaching math at Horace Greeley High School for the past 15 years.
Copyright 2009 NewCastleNOW.org