The Results Are In: Stimulus Bill Neither Timely Nor Targeted

The Heritage Foundation has released a new report on the so-called stimulus bill, and found that the hodge-podge of rushed government spending is not delivering the economic boost that supporters promised:

Not Timely

Government agencies have spent only a tiny fraction of money planned to be spent in fiscal years 2009 and 2010. Moreover, agencies have not allocated most of the money that has been directed toward them for any named projects.

Not Targeted

Fiscal year 2010 ends September 30, 2010, but the recession could end sooner than that. Indeed, a majority of economists surveyed in April predicted the recession will end in 2009. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke also thinks the recession will end this year. The stimulus bill threatens to miss the very target it was meant to address.

Happy Earth Day

Save the Earth! Support the Free Market!

Deep in southern Siberia not far from Russia’s border with Mongolia is the “Blue Eye of Siberia” … the deepest and largest (by volume) fresh water lake in the world. Formed in an ancient rift valley, Lake Baikal is home to more than 1,700 species of plant and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world.

Despite its 25 million year age, Baikal’s life sustaining beauty almost did not survive communist rule. Russian scientists believed that Baikal’s pure water would help produce better rayon cord for airplane tires. The scientists turned out to be wrong and the aviation industry switched from rayon cord to metallic cord in tire production. In a free market system, the plant would have closed and resources would have been allocated elsewhere. But under communism, jobs were the number one priority, and the factory supported 3,500 of them. So it continued polluting the lake for decades unabated.

Big government’s failure to balance environmental quality with other economic goods is not limited to communist Russia. Throughout history big government has a well established track record of tolerating and even perpetuating environmental degradation. The left knows this, which is why they have tried so hard to drape their latest big government plans in free market rhetoric.

From the Heritage Foundation's blog, The Foundry.
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