Here's What I Say About Porkulus II - Son of Sham

Democrats now say they underestimated the severity of the recession and that they need to double down on the stimulus. I think it was the Wall Street Journal that pointed out the absurdity of this claim, noting how many Democrats have since last fall been calling this the worst financial calamity to hit the US since the Great Depression.

Conservatives, including Gone2TX, have been saying since the outset that the $800B stimulus bill was a sham, containing very little true stimulus, with most of that occurring in the out years. Time and the facts on the ground have shown that we were right. Less than 10% of the stimulus has been spent, and the economy has declined far more than projected by Obama's economic team when they were selling us on the need for that enormous pork barrel spending bill. In fact, unemployment now exceeds what Obama's wiz kids said it would be WITHOUT the stimulus. So much for their credibility.

Isn't it just like the left? Whenever their policies fail it was because we just didn't implement the policy on a grand enough scale. They never consider that the policy itself might be flawed. Apparently, $787B is chump change these days, and no one can expect much to be accomplished with so little "investment." So now, like Einstein's definition of insane people, we are asked to keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

We must not acquiesce to this madness. Here's what we propose instead:

We agree that the Porkulus bill didn't work. It didn't work because it did not inject enough stimulus into the economy fast enough. That is because it is dominated by Democrat spending intitiatives that won't kick in for months and years - too late to provide a kickstart to the ecomony here and now - in 2009 . So, we are prepared to go back to the table with you and figure this out. Let's pass a bunch of new stimulus measures that immediately put more money in the hands of individuals and businesses. We can do so by declaring tax holidays (e.g. capital gains) or distributing stimulus checks. Because we are ALL very concerned about the burgeoning deficit, we will cancel out a corresponding amount of out year spending in the Porkulus bill. That way, we get the immediate stimulus we need without exceeding the original $800B price tag agreed to at the outset.