[clearcutforum] STIMULUS FUNDS STIMULATE GOVERNMENT, NOT THE ECONOMY!

Stimulus funds stimulate government, not the economy. Downturn in a business cycle is painful but necessary medicine for restoring equilibrium to the economic system. Reject further lowering of the interest rate (stimulative monetary policy) or any other attempts (for example, deficit spending or stimulative fiscal policy) to stimulate demand. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Stimulus spending is like morphine. It might feel good in the short term for the beneficiaries of the money, but it doesn't help repair the economy. And it causes more damage if it gets in the way of a proper recovery.

A bailout is a perverse transfer from poor taxpayers to rich taxpayers. America's Founding Fathers surely never envisaged that the federal government would take money from one group of Americans and give it to another group. Yet much of the federal budget is devoted to redistribution programs.

Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict points out unemployment is at 9 percent. Four years ago, in late 2007, unemployment was less than 5 percent. Then in 2008, President Bush mailed out millions of 300-dollar government stimulus checks. Later that year, he supported the massive TARP bailout. Unemployment rose. In 2009, President Obama said if we passed another big stimulus plan, unemployment would stay below 8 percent. Now it's at 9 percent. Government spending does not help the economy, it hurts the economy.

Benedict notes stimulus spending doesn't create jobs, it destroys them. When investors hear that the U.S. government is going to flush more money down the spending hole, they react immediately by cutting back on investments that would have created jobs.

Government stimulus spending benefits a few, but at great expense to everyone else. Benedict muses politicians like to be able to say they're "doing something," but too often, "doing something" means handing out money to special interests. Often these programs are promoted with false claims that they will benefit the poor and middle class. Usually the opposite happens.

Benedict asserts that we don't need the government "doing something" if it involves more spending and new programs. We'd be better off if the government stopped trying to help, and gave Americans a chance to recover, adjust their plans, and start solving economic problems themselves.

However, if politicians feel like they must be seen "doing something", then they should cut spending, bring our troops home from the Middle East, reduce Medicare and Social Security benefits, cut taxes, and eliminate burdensome licensing laws and minimum wage laws. Licensing and minimum wage laws take the bottom rungs off the economic ladder.

Benedict points out libertarians always support broad-based tax cuts. But targeted special-interest cuts and loopholes just amount to social engineering, and they pit different interest groups against each other. And tax cuts without spending cuts virtually guarantee that future generations will suffer a heavier tax burden. It's foolish to talk about increasing taxes on the wealthy. That would be a great way to destroy even more jobs. Libertarians want to cut spending, and cut taxes for everyone.