The biggest spending bill in American history has just been signed into law. If Roosevelt’s New Deal was converted into today’s dollars, it would have cost roughly half what the new stimulus bill will cost. Funny thing, since the economy was in much worse shape in the 1930’s. Government spending did not get America out of that depression either. In fact, the recession we are currently in has been quickly dubbed a depression by liberals who want to push a big government agenda. Now, as then, big government liberals have seized on the opportunity created by an economic crisis to saddle the American people with expensive social programs and heavy handed government restrictions on free-enterprise.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste”, said President Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Immanuel. Yes, if your goal is to push big government programs past the American people against their better judgment, then the panic invoked by a crisis is the ideal time to achieve such a feat. Obama’s administration, acting in concert with the democrat controlled congress, has been moving quickly and boldly to implement Socialism-Lite. The stimulus bill included a sneaky provision allocating 600 million dollars to “prepare the American people for universal healthcare”. No wonder the bill was pushed through congress so quickly, under the premise that it was necessary due to the “crisis”, without adequate time to read the bill or debate its provisions before it was passed into law. As much as the bill had to be passed by the weekend to avoid further economic collapse, Barack Obama did not rush home from his long-weekend off to sign the bill. He waited till Tuesday.

No Senator or Congressman was left behind in this massive spending bill. These well-dressed politicians, immune from the difficulties in the economy the rest of us face, put together a nearly 1 trillion dollar spending package that hands off money to almost every special interest group imaginable. Every dollar of the bill will be paid for by you and me, or perhaps our children and grandchildren- with interest. If the congress had been spending their own personal fortunes instead of ours, they may have been much more careful and conservative about which provisions of this bill were really necessary or had hope of being effective.

The non-partisan congressional budget office predicts that the stimulus bill will have a slightly negative net effect on the economy. “In contrast to its positive near-term macroeconomic effects, the legislation would reduce output slightly in the long run”. In other words, doing nothing would be better for the economy. Perhaps permanent tax-rate cuts would improve the long-term economic outlook, but a fundamental problem with the American economy is that we are spending more than we earn. We are consuming more than we produce. As individuals and as a nation, we are deeply indebted, and for real prosperity and economic stability to resume, we need to produce more than we consume. I think this needs to be achieved by cutting back our spending to sustainable levels that fit within our national and personal means, while actively paying down debt until we become debt free.

The real danger in the stimulus package is that it dramatically expands the federal government’s power by putting States on the Federal dole, extending government power into the private economy in the form of bank subsidies, and supplanting private investment with government directed spending. Because the federal government is borrowing so much money to fund the stimulus bill, its acquisition of investment dollars will partially crowd out monies that would have been invested in more productive private enterprises. The CBO reports that “in the long run, each dollar of additional debt crowds out about a third of a dollar’s worth of private domestic capital” thereby hurting the private economy in favor of government run enterprise. Such socialistic workings inhibit the strength and robustness of the free enterprise system that has provided Americans with the highest standard of living in the world.

To top it all off, there is the prospect that the government will print much of the money it needs and cannot get from selling bonds. This causes inflation, and ultimately dilutes the value of everyone’s money. Goods become more expensive. Inflation is a cruel form of tax, since it is particularly hard on the elderly who live on fixed incomes. In fact, the money printing has already begun.

Strap yourself in. It is going to be a wild ride before our nation sobers up. We seem to be making the same mistakes which prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Big government spending crowding out private investment, a left-wing President in whom people place too much hope, and protectionist economic policies which drive down world trade.

It is not history that repeats itself, but human nature. Repeatedly, nations cycle through periods of (1) virtue; (2) prosperity; (3) excess, greed, pride and envy; (4)decline. It would be a blessing to mankind if we could cut the cycle short, and return to virtue and prosperity without drinking the dregs of decline’s cup before we sober up and recapture our first principles.

Before America gets too excited about “Yes, we can!”, we should stop and consider whether we should. America does need change, but that change should be in the direction of virtue, personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, honesty, and accountability. Big government helps none of the above.