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January 28, 2009The Obama Splurge / Stimulus: "A 40 Year Wish List"Via a kind reader's email: The Wall Street Journal: "Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."Jeffrey Sachs: The US debate over the fiscal stimulus is remarkable in its neglect of the medium term - that is, the budgetary challenges over a period of five to 10 years. Neither the White House nor Congress has offered the public a scenario of how the proposed mega-deficits will affect the budget and government programmes beyond the next 12 to 24 months. Without a sound medium-term fiscal framework, the stimulus package can easily do more harm than good, since the prospect of trillion-dollar-plus deficits as far as the eye can see will weigh heavily on the confidence of consumers and businesses, and thereby undermine even the short-term benefits of the stimulus package.More from Victor Davis Hanson and Greg Mankiw on the Congressional Budget Office: So only 8 percent of this spending occurs in budget year 2009, and only 41 percent occurs in first two years. Note that spending on transfer payments and tax relief occurs much faster than this: click through to the above link for details.Mario Rizzo quotes Keynes: "Organized public works, at home and abroad, may be the right cure for a chronic tendency to a deficiency of effective demand. But they are not capable of sufficiently rapid organisation (and above all cannot be reversed or undone at a later date), to be the most serviceable instrument for the prevention of the trade cycle."Finally, a look at the origins of the Madison School District's $18M slice of the splurge. Long time Wisconsin Congressman David Obey is chair of the House Appropriations Committee, a position that gives him a prime seat for earmarks. Finally, Nanette Asimove notes the proposed borrowing and printing money for California. Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 28, 2009 8:13 AMSubscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas |