Why the Delay?
President
Obama, after spending the better part of the last month insisting
that his so-called economic stimulus package be passed immediately
(maintaining that failure to do so would spell utter ruin for the
country), is going to wait until tomorrow to sign the bill, which was
passed last Friday. The fact that the President has delayed signing
the bill puts the lie to the supposed emergency conditions that
required the immediate passage of the bill. Remember, this is a bill
that the Statists consider to be so important that time could not be
spent debating any of its multitude of provisions or even whether or
not it was necessary. The President repeatedly went on radio and
television and spoke before live audiences berating Republicans, and
others, for daring to ask what is in it, who is going to reap the
benefits of the hundreds of billions of dollars that are being spent,
and trying to make modifications that might actually help the
economy, such as including more tax cuts in it and cutting back on
the actual spending that the President proposed. We were told many
times during the last three weeks or so that passage of this bill was
imperative; that every minute that was taken before passage meant that more American
jobs were lost, more homes were foreclosed, and more damage was being
done to the very fabric of the American economy itself. Now that the
bill has been passed and the spending of the hundreds of billions of
dollars is assured, the sense of urgency has, apparently, vanished.
One must ask,
why is this? Why is delay acceptable now, but not during the time
leading up to the passage of this incredibly wasteful, and damaging,
piece of legislation? Why are not the President's supporters camped
outside the Oval Office chanting, “Sign that bill, save our jobs,
spend that money” at the top of their voices? The simple fact is
that, as with the TARP bailout bill that was rushed through under
similar conditions of feigned urgency last October, those who backed
the bill understand full well that a delay of even several months
would not make a significant difference to the overall effect on the
American economy in the long run. The American economy is too large
to quickly change direction, either up or down. It has taken months,
if not years, for the effects of the collapse of the housing bubble,
which actually began in late 2006/early 2007 to reach the point they
have. It will take equally as long, if not longer, for the many
malinvestments that were made, in large part because of mis-guided
policies of the Federal government, to be corrected so that the
assets involved can be put to good use and the economy can resume
growing. The only reason that the Keynesian economists and statist
politicians painted such a dire picture was to panic the American
people, many of whom are woefully ignorant regarding economics, into
demanding that “something be done” to forestall the looming
disaster which supposedly threatened to engulf mom, apple pie, and
all that is good. Politicians know from long practice that the best
way to get what they want, in this case more power over the economy
for the Federal government, is to evoke a sense of urgency around
whatever their current issue is. The result is that, between the
actions made possible by the TARP bill, loans of billions of dollars
to the Detroit automakers, and, now, the economic stimulus package,
the power of the State to intervene in the United States economy has
grown tremendously. Large parts of the financial and manufacturing
segments of the economy are now effectively nationalized, though most
Americans don't realize it because that term is never used.
Instead,
we are told that “bridge loans” have been made to the automakers
so that they can go on to “financial viability”. "Equity stakes"
are taken in large and important financial institutions. New
regulations are called for so that “this will never happen again.”
Trillions of dollars are pumped into the banking system by the
Federal Reserve in an attempt to “get the credit markets moving
again.” Executives of businesses which have taken Federal money
are now told how much they may be paid instead of having their wages set
by voluntary negotiations and market forces. The strings that are
attached to the billions of dollars about to be spent as part of the
economic stimulus package are presented as the means of “making
sure the taxpayers' money is well spent.” In other countries these
actions are called “forced nationalization” (as was the case when
Venezuela took over oil fields and other assets owned by foreign oil
companies). In other countries the proliferation of new regulations
is called authoritarianism. In other countries if the government
sets maximum wages it is seen as socialism or communism. In other
countries when the central government decides how money must be spent
and who the winners and losers are in the marketplace it is called
“central planning.” Something must be different about the United
States when the same actions are called by other names and the
motives of those who back the new powers of the State are
automatically assumed to be pure and benign. It's probably something
in the air that ensures that the United States' government would
never, ever, do anything but good.
As
always when dealing with politicians it is more important to pay
attention to what they do, than to what they say. Actions do,
indeed, speak louder than words and President Obama's delay in
signing his much ballyhooed and supposedly vital “economic
stimulus” bill reveals that he knew all along that his story was a
tissue of lies and distortions. The American people have, again,
allowed themselves to be duped into giving up more of their freedom
in the mistaken belief that the State will keep them “safe”; this
time from “economic turmoil.” There is precious little real
freedom left in this nation, as most citizens will discover when they
wake up one day to find that the State has decided how much they are
allowed to earn, how much of some good they may purchase at the local
market, how limited their choices of domestically manufactured motor
vehicles (and the options on those which are available) are, and what
doctors they may see and what treatments they may be offered, among
other things. Americans have forgotten, if indeed most of them ever
stopped to realize, that a State which can “give” them everything
also has the power to take those things away. Liberty may not
guarantee that everyone can have everything they might desire, but it
does guarantee that what they do get they will be allowed to keep.