Brilliant!

Mitt Romney's Commentary concerning the stimulus package

Stimulate the economy, not government

By Mitt Romney
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Mitt Romney is the former governor of Massachusetts and was a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. This commentary was adapted from remarks he made last week to the House Republican Conference.

These are extraordinary times, and like a lot of Republicans I believe that a well-crafted stimulus plan is needed to put people back to work. But the Obama spending bill would stimulate the government, not the economy.

Mitt Romney says Obama's spending bill would stimulate the government rather than the economy.

We're on an economic tightrope. The package that passed the House is a huge increase in the amount of government borrowing. And we've borrowed so much already that if we add too much more debt, or spend foolishly, we could invite an even bigger crisis.

We could precipitate a worldwide crisis of confidence in America, leading to a run on the dollar or hyperinflation that wipes out family savings and devastates the middle class.

It's still early in the administration of President Obama. Like everyone who loves this country, I want him to adopt the correct course and then to succeed. He still has a chance to step in and insist on spending discipline among the members of his own party.

It's his job to set priorities. I hope for America's sake that he knows that a chief executive can't vote "present." He has to say yes to some things and no to a lot of others.

As someone who spent a career in the private sector, I'd like to see a stimulus package that respects the productivity and genius of the American people. And experience shows us what it should look like.

First, there are two ways you can put money into the economy, by spending more or by taxing less. But if it's stimulus you want, taxing less works best. That's why permanent tax cuts should be the centerpiece of the economic stimulus. Watch Romney make argument for tax cuts

Second, any new spending must be strictly limited to projects that are essential. How do we define essential? Well, a good rule is that the projects we fund in a stimulus should be legitimate government priorities that would have been carried out in the future anyway, and are simply being moved up to create those jobs now.

As we take out nonessential projects, we should focus on funding the real needs of government that will have immediate impact. And what better place to begin than repairing and replacing military equipment that was damaged or destroyed in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan?

Third, sending out rebate checks to citizens and businesses is not a tax cut. The media bought this line so far, but they've got it wrong. Checks in the mail are refunds, not tax cuts. We tried rebate checks in 2008 and they did virtually nothing to jump-start the economy. Disposable income went up, but consumption hardly moved.

Businesses aren't stupid. They're not going to invest in equipment and new hires for a one-time, short-term blip. What's needed are permanent rate cuts on individuals and businesses.

Fourth, if we're going to tax less and spend more to get the economy moving, then we have to make another commitment as well. As soon as this economy recovers, we have to regain control over the federal budget, and above all, over entitlement spending for programs such as Social Security and Medicare. This is more important than most people are willing to admit.

There is a real danger that with trillions of additional borrowing -- from the budget deficit and from the stimulus -- world investors will begin to fear that our dollars won't be worth much in the future. It is essential that we demonstrate our commitment to maintaining the value of the dollar. That means showing the world that we will put a stop to runaway spending and borrowing.

Fifth, we must begin to recover from the enormous losses in the capital investment pool. And the surest, most obvious way to get that done is to send a clear signal that there will be no tax increases on investment and capital gains. The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts should be extended permanently, or at least temporarily.

And finally, let's exercise restraint in the size of the stimulus package. Last year, with the economy already faltering, I proposed a stimulus of $233 billion. The Washington Post said: "Romney's plan is way too big." So what critique will the media have for the size of the Obama package?

In the final analysis, we know that only the private sector -- entrepreneurs and businesses large and small -- can create the millions of jobs our country needs. The invisible hand of the market always moves faster and better than the heavy hand of government.

This is why I supported Romney for President. He just "gets it." Capitalism works! We cannot spend our way out of this. And I sincerely do not understand how spending money we DON'T HAVE is going to fix our problem. It's like our house is in foreclosure, and instead of finding ways to get out of foreclosure, we're borrowing money from our kids to decorate the house! Expanding government programs with borrowed money or newly printed money will not end well. Inflation is coming; I just hope it's normal inflation and not hyperinflation.

Urgency of Pork Barrel Spending

The Fierce Urgency of Pork

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 6, 2009; A17

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."

-- President Obama, Feb. 4.

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

What a great opinion piece. I honestly don't know how President Obama can support this with such arrogance. When this passes and fails to stimulate the economy, he'll have one disenfranchised country on his shoulders. That should humble him a little. I think it's time he realize he's only human... not "larger than life," or "too big to fail."

U.S. Debt Default, Dollar Collapse Altogether Likely

The prospect of the United States defaulting on its debt is not just likely. It's inevitable, and imminent.

The regulatory black holes into which sanity and reason disappear on a daily basis are soon to collapse under the mass of their sheer size. The circle jerk going on among G7 governments has to end – the steady advance of gold, even in the face of a managed price, exposes the real value of the U.S. dollar, as opposed to its apparent value expressed in the dollar index.

Is 2009 the year that the United States formally defaults? And with that, will the dollar collapse be rolled back ten for one or more?

There are a lot of reasons to support that theory. To Wall Street economists, such an event is heresy and therefore unthinkable. Yet Wall Street is the very La-la-land that bred the idea of a perpetually indebted nation in the first place.

Number one among the indicators favoring this scenario is what is happening in the U.S. Treasuries auction market.

Last Thursday, an $30 billion auction in five-year notes failed to stir the interest of traditional primary dealers. The auction itself was saved by an anonymous “indirect” bid.

Buyers are discouraged by the prospect of what is expected to amount to $2 trillion total issuance for the full year of 2009. The further out the maturities on notes, the more bearish the sentiment towards them. The only way to entice buyers is through the increase in yields.

But with yields at 1.82 per cent, five-year notes were met with a demand for 1.98 times the amount offered - the lowest bid-to-cover ratio since September. A sell-off in treasuries began in earnest upon the conclusion of that auction.

The U.S. Federal Reserve suggested last week that it was going to step up its treasury-buying activity, and the mainstream media interprets this as a form of market support. What it actually is evidence of growing anxiety and desperation on the part of the Fed as the realization dawns that demand for treasuries is progressively evaporating.

The increased demand for gold as an investment witnessed throughout the last two weeks that has pushed gold to a 4 month high is further evidence that investors across the board are gravitating more towards gold and away from U.S. debt.

So what is the catalyzing event that will precipitate outright capitulation?

I think the spin-controlled version of events will make the collapse of the derivatives market the red herring that facilitates the aw-shucks-we-have-no-choice shoe-gazing moment possible, and that’s exactly the parachute the government needs to retain a veneer of credibility - at least in its own delusional mirror.

The announcement that the CFTC was about to become the target of a regulatory overhaul supports this theory. Consistent with his unfortunate proclivity to hiring foxes to guard chickens, Barack Obama’s choice for CFTC commissioner Gary Gensler was the undersecretary of the U.S. Treasury when the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 was passed, and is one of its architects. This was the piece of legislation that was put forth to appease the opposition to “dark market” trading in certain OTC derivatives first noisily derided by CFTC commissioner Brooksley Born in 1998.

Ignoring Born’s admonishments with this act, it exempted credit default swaps (CDO’s) from regulation, resulting in the somewhere between 58 and 300 trillion dollars in value presently under threat if the positions were to be unwound. Because of their unregulated status, counterparties in the largest transactions can simply “roll forward” contracts, instead of the losing party in the transaction covering their loss with a transfer of money. It is this massive “nominal” value that could be the Achilles heel of what’s left of the U.S. banking system, and by extension, the U.S. dollar.

I don’t arrive at this conclusion because I like making catastrophic outlandish predictions. Its merely the result of following certain logical paths to their most likely outcome based on what has happened in the past.

In discussions on this topic with editors of top tier financial publications, such speculation is dismissed out of hand, and the argument to refute the likelihood of such outcomes is never brought forward.

Gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) are now the largest holders of physical gold, and as a proxy for investors who don’t want to be encumbered with taking delivery of the physical, provide a simple way to participate in the gold market.

United States citizens should bear in mind, however, that should the banking system be brought down completely by the collapse of the futures market, proxies for gold such as ETF’s and bullion funds could theoretically be targeted by a government desperate for possession of value. The risk from security in holding physical bullion is matched by the risk of confiscation by government in these volatile times. Don’t forget, the government confiscated and outlawed private ownership of gold in 1933 in support of an ill-conceived gold standard, which to some extent, was that era’s spin to halt the flight of gold (and real value) from U.S. soil.

Don’t think for a minute such drastic events are outside the realm of possibility. If somebody had told you in 1998 that a bunch of angry crazy pseudo-Muslims were going to fly jetliners into the World Trade Center, what would you have said?

As Americans, we just cannot afford to remain arrogant of this issue; we can collapse our dollar. Especially with the number of bills we're printing everyday... see link and chart below (it's horrifying). (copy & paste)

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/20632/?ck=1

New Rangel Rule Bill Would Eliminate IRS Interest and Penalties

Washington, Jan 28 -

IRS Penalties and Interest Eliminated for All U.S. Taxpayers under new “Rangel Rule” Legislation

(WASHINGTON, DC) – All U.S. taxpayers would enjoy the same immunity from IRS penalties and interest as House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Obama Administration Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, if a bill introduced today by Congressman John Carter (R-TX) becomes law.

Carter, a former longtime Texas judge, today introduced the Rangel Rule Act of 2009, HR 735, which would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from charging penalties and interest on back taxes against U.S. citizens. Under the proposed law, any taxpayer who wrote “Rangel Rule” on their return when paying back taxes would be immune from penalties and interest.

“We must show the American people that Congress is following the same law, and the same legal process as we expect them to follow,” says Carter. “That has not been done in the ongoing case against Chairman Rangel, nor in the instance of our new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. If we don’t hold our highest elected officials to the same standards as regular working folks, we owe it to our constituents to change those standards so everyone is abiding by the same law. Americans believe in blind justice, which shows no favoritism to the wealthy or powerful.”

Carter also said the tax law change will provide good economic stimulus benefits, as it would free many taxpayers from massive debts to the IRS, restoring those funds to the free market to help create jobs.

No one is above the law. Expecting constituents to abide by one set of laws while representatives work with another, is completely unconstitutional and unethical. I still cannot believe we have someone running the IRS who couldn't pay his own taxes...that Turbo Tax is tricky! (Are you kidding me?) How is he going to have any credibility with the American people? Now if the "Rangel Rule"is approved, we can all benefit from Charlie and Tim's unlawful decisions...er, "mistakes."

The Detour Around the Banking Disaster

The Detour Around Banking Disaster: How We Lost the Roadmap

by: Mark Sunshine February 02, 2009

In 1998 the current banking crisis was both predictable and predicted by Congressional leaders and a future Comptroller of the Currency.

In April 1998, the House Committee on Banking & Financial Services held hearings where “lessons” from the 1980s bank and thrift crisis were discussed, and fears of industry consolidation were expressed. Hearings transcripts clearly demonstrate that the United States learned important lessons in the 1980s and 1990s… and then promptly forgot them.

The chilling 1998 transcript provides a roadmap for how to avoid blowing up banks and taking down the economy. But, instead of learning from the past, banking regulators and other politicians from both parties veered off course and drove the economy into the ditch.

The backdrop for the 1998 hearings was a wave of massive consolidation of the banking industry and concern that systemic risk was being created by institutions that were "too big to fail”.

During the 1998 hearing, John Hawke, then Under Secretary of the Treasury and soon to be Comptroller of the Currency until 2004, stated:

… I would say that we have a lot to learn from the experience of the 1980’s, but I think principal among the things we have to learn is that you can’t deal effectively with an industry like the savings and loan industry when it is already insolvent.

That was the problem that Congress faced. The industry was insolvent by 1980, and we were all pretending that it wasn’t. We tried to deal with remedies that were intended to gamble on an insolvent industry pulling itself out of insolvency.

I think the congressional response in later years, putting emphasis on the maintenance of high levels of capital, putting emphasis on prompt corrective action and on better disclosure, is a marked change from what happened during the experience of the 1980s.

When an industry or institution is insolvent, it is too late to try to bring remedies to bear, and regulation and supervision should be aimed at preventing insolvency and bringing market forces to bear, so that we are not dealing with institutions that have no net worth left. That was the problem of the 1980s.”

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney knew what to do with insolvent banks, i.e., shift losses to:

…the person who is initiating the risk and make them realize they will have to pay for it…if you make a mistake, if you squander money, take all these outrageous risks, they…are going to have to pay for it, not the American taxpayer…

Representative Joseph Kennedy understood systemic risks of putting together larger and larger institutions. Of course, the banking establishment considered Kennedy a lightweight intellectual populist who opposed financial innovation (like sub-prime mortgages and predatory lending). But, as it turns out Kennedy may have been the smartest guy in the room. In 1998 he said

…Sometimes when I look at what has happened in the banking world in the last couple of months, I think that maybe the chairmen of these banks have just gotten a prescription for the Viagra pill. I think every time I turn around they are growing and growing, but I don’t know what is going to come of it.

Mega-merger mania is the new Beanie Baby of the American financial scene; everybody has got to have one, but at the end of the day they are not worth very much…

Kennedy understood that bigger isn’t better and size isn’t the same thing as value.

The Late Congressman Bruce Vento agreed with Kennedy when he said:

…I am concerned about mega-anything, especially mega-entities with deposit insurance backed by the taxpayer and an implicit moral hazard phenomenon that is assumed.

But Congressman Maurice Hinchey voiced the most unsettling and predictive words of the 1998 hearings. He worried about Citigroup (C) and its relative power and sheer size (at the time Citigroup had acquired Travelers Insurance and was trying to get Glass Steagall legislation revoked) when he stated:

…the Citigroup companies are essentially playing a very expensive game of chicken with Congress…

History repeats itself, and Citigroup and other mega-institutions are again playing chicken with Congress. Destruction of the U.S. economy is threatened if they are not bailed out.

Next week the United States will debate how to fix the banks. The nation will be given the false choice of either:

• economic ruin; or
• saving shareholders of failing banks through the formation of a “bad bank”.

The debate will employ politically charged words like “nationalize” and “socialize” to describe what happens to banks that are actually “insolvent” and “failing”.

Institutions resisting seizure will imply that their companies have value which the Government wants to unfairly expropriate. Communist regimes and tin pan dictators “nationalize” profitable companies. But the banks that are in trouble aren’t profitable and aren’t able to survive without government assistance. The companies at risk of seizure don’t have enough net worth to survive as going concerns.

Professor Nouriel Roubini and other non-establishment economists have been pushed aside as they plead with leaders to stop playing along with failing bank managements and face reality. But, as in 1980, regulators and political leaders don’t want to admit the obvious about insolvent institutions. Instead, just like in the 1980s they seem willing to bet that insolvent banks will somehow pull themselves out of trouble without going through the pain of resolution. It isn’t a bet that has worked in the past.

The “bad bank” that the Obama Administration is considering is a bad idea that perpetuates the fiction of solvency.

A good idea (and one that worked in the past) would be to form a “bad bank” that acquires bad assets from insolvent institutions following their seizure by the FDIC.

What is at stake is who benefits from the cleaning up of the banking sector, current shareholders or taxpayers?

It’s pretty clear that the members of the 1998 House Financial Services Committee would have voted that taxpayers should get the benefit from the bad bank clean-up, since the taxpayers accepted the risk and paid the cost.

It is a shame that each generation of banking regulators and political leadership gets the opportunity to relearn the lessons of the past at the expense of the citizens of the United States. It would be better, and cheaper, if each generation simply studied the past and stopped rediscovering the obvious truth “that you can’t deal with an industry when it is already insolvent”.

- By Mark Sunshine and Ira Artman

Wow! This is some serious in-your-face honesty. Does anyone in the current administration read "Seeking Alpha?" Perhaps they should...

The case for doing nothing

The case for doing nothing By: Eamon Javers and Jim VandeHei January 28, 2009 04:15 AM EST

Most of Washington has reached quick consensus: Government must do something big to shock the economy, and it should cost between $800 billion and $900 billion. But dissident economists and investment professionals offer a much different take: Most of Washington is dead wrong. Instead of fighting over what should go in the economic stimulus bill, pitting infrastructure spending against tax cuts and contractors against contraceptives, they say lawmakers should be fighting against the very idea of any economic stimulus at all. Call them the Do-Nothing Crowd. “The economy was too big. It was all phantom wealth borrowed from abroad,” says Andrew Schiff, an investment consultant at Euro Pacific Capital and a card-carrying member of the stand-tall-against-the-stimulus lobby. “All this stimulus money is geared toward getting consumers spending and borrowing again. But spending and borrowing were the problem in the first place.” Washington has a habit of passing legislation in a crisis and suffering from morning-after regrets — the Iraq war, the Patriot Act and last year’s original bank bailout plan come to mind. So we thought it would be wise to air the views of the naysayers toward Washington’s latest consensus approach. First, we’ll look at the Do-Nothing Crowd. On Thursday, we will hear from the go-bigger-or-go-home gang, who argue that even $1 trillion in spending is far too small — and that the stimulus package should be much bigger than $825 billion. See Also The celestial choirs of bailouts Grassley launches porn inquiry Obama lawyers set to defend Yoo There is no doubt these are minority views. Most lawmakers, economists and policymakers say the economy desperately needs a massive infusion of money to prevent collapse — and needs it now. The Obama administration, backed by many economists, says unemployment could easily top 10 percent and the gross domestic product could tank absent government intervention. The language used to make the case for stimulus is stark and gloomy — and, by all measures, pretty accurate. But there is also a caveat attached to every solution proposed: that it simply might not work. Economists on the right and left say there is a chance, perhaps a decent one, that $1 trillion injected into a $14 trillion economy might be too little, too late to turn things around anytime soon. In fact, government stimulus plans have a long history of failure. Remember last February’s $168 billion economic stimulus package? President Bush called it “a booster shot for our economy” and promised that it was large enough to have an effect. It wasn’t, and it didn’t work. This time around, the Do-Nothing Crowd argues that the new spending — which dwarfs last year’s effort — is probably insufficient and definitely unwise. It is largely an economic argument. But there is also a cultural dimension. Many of the Do-Nothings argue that a painful recession is the best way to destroy America’s runaway culture of irresponsibility and debt. Economic turmoil, after all, has a way of grounding Americans. Schiff and the other Do-Nothings argue that the government should simply allow the economic chips to fall where they may. Dramatic belt-tightening across the board is the only way, they say, to stop the endless cycle of borrowing. “Our standard of living needs to come down to the point where it can be supported by organic output,” says Schiff. “It’s brutal, but it’s called capitalism, and it works. The alternative is called socialism, and it doesn’t work.” To help push that argument on Capitol Hill, the libertarian Cato Institute plans to take out a full-page ad in The New York Times and The Washington Post on Thursday and Roll Call on Wednesday, making the case against stimulus. The ad will include the names of 250 economists across the country who oppose the massive spending and tax cut program that’s backed by President Barack Obama and many congressional leaders. Many of those are Do-Nothings, while others have more nuanced views about how the proposal as packaged won’t work. For the Do-Nothings, the argument isn’t about economic nuance, it’s about right and wrong. They say that borrowing more money to finance a stimulus package will pass a crushing and possibly permanent debt load on to the next generation. “The question is,” says Chris Edwards, the director of tax policy studies at Cato, “is this morally proper?” Edwards says no. “Policymakers are saying: ‘Screw the future generations.’” The Do-Nothing Crowd also points to some of the hidden upsides of the recession — developments they say are already helping position the U.S. economy for a recovery. The most noticeable impact is that housing prices are coming down to a more sustainable level. For first-time buyers, this is reopening a path to homeownership that had been all but blocked by hyper-inflated prices. The National Association of Realtors reported this week that housing sales rose 6.5 percent from November to December, largely on the strength of bargain hunters snapping up foreclosed properties. That could be a sign that the housing market is on its way to a balancing point at which lower prices once again draw new buyers into the system. In the meantime, weak companies that have problems competing are being weeded out of the system. For example, Circuit City announced that it would liquidate its stores and assets, laying off an estimated 34,000 employees. That’s not necessarily a tragedy, argues Cato’s Edwards. “The weak are getting weeded out. Circuit City had crappy customer service, and I’m glad that Best Buy will survive and Circuit City will not.” Ideally, the collapse of weaker competitors is an economic opportunity for the stronger survivors to gain market share — and hire new workers. Another galvanizing effect of the downturn is that companies have been forced to face the reality that they haven’t been making products that customers actually want to buy. General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner, for example, conceded in testimony on Capitol Hill in December that his company had made mistakes, including “not moving fast enough to invest in smaller, more-fuel-efficient vehicles for the U.S. market.” As the old saying goes, imminent death has a way of focusing the mind. An even better consequence of recession, say the Do-Nothings, is that American families are finally starting to pay down the dangerously high debt levels they’ve accumulated. One of the reasons last year’s economic stimulus failed, in fact, was that Americans used the money to pay off bills, not to spend on new products. In a country that had developed a negative personal savings rate, that’s probably a good thing. And here’s something truly surprising: The recession might even be good for your health. The New York Times reported that Americans are drinking less alcohol, noting that a “study based on surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1987 through 1999 found that drinking in this country generally drops during economic hard times, especially among heavy drinkers.” That may be not due to a renewed sense of sobriety and responsibility, but rather to the decline in workers’ discretionary income. Still, liver surgeons will tell you that less drinking is probably healthy. For all that, the Do-Nothings fully expect to lose the argument in Washington this week. The political momentum is all on the side of the stimulus. “Politicians feel a need to validate their own political authority, and they feel they have to do something,” says Robert Romano of the nonprofit group Americans for Limited Government. Nobel Prize-winning economist Edward Prescott of Arizona State University agrees. “Congress has to do what people want, and it’s clear that the people want this stimulus,” Prescott says. “But I just wish the people would tell them: ‘Don’t do it.’”

© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC This is like a physician prescribing an antibiotic to a patient with a viral infection. It may make the patient feel all warm and fuzzy because he has medicine to treat his runny nose, but, in the end, nature will take care of it. The stimulus will not stimulate anything but the government. I just wish we'd all wake up. Times may get tough, but we'll get through it and prosper even more if we just let capitalism work! Government involvement will only make matters worse. If there is an example of government stepping in and spending it's way out of a massive financial crisis, I'd love to hear about it... I know it's been tested, but everything I've read suggests it leads to a prolonged recession or depression.