History only repeats itself when people don’t learn from it.  Even recent history.

Japan’s rural areas have been paved over and filled in with roads, dams and other big infrastructure projects, the legacy of trillions of dollars spent to lift the economy from a severe downturn caused by the bursting of a real estate bubble in the late 1980s. During those nearly two decades, Japan accumulated the largest public debt in the developed world — totaling 180 percent of its $5.5 trillion economy — while failing to generate a convincing recovery.

Yes, some still think that such spending can indeed create a recovery (notably, in the article, tax scofflaw Timothy Geithner), but it’s all theoretical, much like Japan’s attempt at stimulus.  In fact, Japan bailed out its banks as well, and the cure, at least according to the people living there (as opposed to those watching from an ivory tower) was far worse than the disease.

In the end, say economists, it was not public works but an expensive cleanup of the debt-ridden banking system, combined with growing exports to China and the United States, that brought a close to Japan’s Lost Decade. This has led many to conclude that spending did little more than sink Japan deeply into debt, leaving an enormous tax burden for future generations.

In the United States, it has also led to calls in Congress, particularly by Republicans, not to repeat the errors of Japan’s failed economic stimulus. They argue that it makes more sense to cut taxes, and let people decide how to spend their own money, than for the government to decide how to invest public funds. Japan put more emphasis on increased spending than tax cuts during its slump, but ultimately did reduce consumption taxes to encourage consumer spending as well.

Economists tend to divide into two camps on the question of Japan’s infrastructure spending: those, many of them Americans like Mr. Geithner, who think it did not go far enough; and those, many of them Japanese, who think it was a colossal waste.

Learn from history, or we may in for our own Lost Decade.

Living beyond our means is now, apparently, so important that, according to Obama, "we don’t have a moment to spare."  Jacob Sullum of Reason magazine demonstrates just how irresponsible the economic stimulus bill is, and how it 180 degrees away from what Obama once preached.

For a little perspective:  Mitch McConnell said that if you spent $1 million every day since Jesus was born, you still wouldn’t have outspent the proposed stimulus bill.  PolitiFact say, yup, he’s right.

From Chuck Asay.  (Click for a larger version.)

We punish the fiscally responsible by making them pay for the irresponsible.  Do you think this will bring about more responsibility or less?  Hmmm.

Ben Stein is not impressed.

I love this. The new kind of politics of hope. Eight hours of debate in the HR to pass a bill spending $820 billion, or roughly $102 billion per hour of debate.

Only ten per cent of the "stimulus" to be spent on 2009.

Close to half goes to entities that sponsor or employ or both members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions, or other Democrat-controlled unions.

This bill is sent to Congress after Obama has been in office for seven days. It is 680 pages long. According to my calculations, not one member of Congress read the entire bill before this vote. Obviously, it would have been impossible, given his schedule, for President Obama to have read the entire bill.

For the amount spent we could have given every unemployed person in the United States roughly $75,000.

We could give every person who had lost a job and is now passing through long-term unemployment of six months or longer roughly $300,000.

There has been pork barrel politics since there has been politics. The scale of this pork is beyond what had ever been imagined before — and no one can be sure it will actually do much stimulation.

Especially considering Stein’s note that only 10% of this even gets spent in 2009, and that most recessions don’t last more than a year, this is simply a way to push the pork and pretend to "do something".  And then, when the recession ends you can take credit and garner votes for you and your party.

All the House Republicans voted against this.  If you’re a fiscal conservative, you should be glad they listen to Rush Limbaugh.  And if you’re not a fiscal conservative, then perhaps the Senate version of the "economic stimulus" bill might make you one.  What’s in it?  Here’s a sampling:

•    $20 million “for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers.” (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “20,000,000 for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers)

•    $400 million for STD prevention (Pg. 60 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “CDC estimates that a proximately 19 million new STD infections occur annually in the United States …The Committee has included $400,000,000 for testing and prevention of these conditions.”)

•    $25 million to rehabilitate off-roading (ATV) trails (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “$25,000,000 is for recreation maintenance, especially for rehabilitation of off-road vehicle routes, and $20,000,000 is for trail maintenance and restoration”)

•    $34 million to remodel the Department of Commerce HQ (Pg. 15 of Senate Appropriations Committee report:  $34,000,000 for the Department of Commerce renovation and modernization”)

•    $70 million to “Support Supercomputing Activities” for climate research (Pgs. 14-15 of Senate Appropriations Committee Report: $70,000,000 is directed to specifically support supercomputing activities, especially as they relate to climate research)

•    $150 million for honey bee insurance (Pg. 102 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “The Secretary shall use up to $ 50,000,000 per year, and $150,000,000 in the case of 2009, from the Trust Fund to provide emergency relief to eligible producers of livestock, honey bees, and farm-raised fish to aid in the reduction of losses due to disease, adverse weather, or other conditions, such as blizzards and wildfires, as determined by the Secretary”)

The critical infrastructure spending is well within the purview of the federal government, and frankly is long overdue.  But there’s a huge amount of pork coming out of this that the Democrats seek to sweep under the rug hoping you won’t notice.  It’s apparently too imminent a problem to bother, y’know, debating the bill for too much longer.  This pork, er, stimulus must be passed now.

Here’s a video giving us a timeline of what happened when in the story of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse.  Take special note of who was for regulation and who was against it. 

Read the rest of this entry

Obama listened to the GOP’s criticisms of, and suggestions for, his economic stimulus plan, and included the title of this post as one of his rebuttals.  The Kos Krowd krows about it, but Moe Lane at Redstate takes Obama up on that offer.

So, it’s all yours. Your responsibility, your obligation, your reputation on the line. Not ours: yours.

Because, after all, you won.

Indeed, Obama won, and he can have it any way he wants.  Elections, as the GOP noted during its time, mean things.  But this quip, just days after being seated in the Oval Office, makes it sound like that vaunted bipartisanship that Democrats always say they want is not so highly valued by the Democratic President. 

I know he’ll take credit where credit is due, but will he take the blame where it’s due?  All the blame?  Hey, he won.

From Chuck Asay:

For the record, I disagreed with Cheney’s remark, and I disagree with Obama’s solution.  Putting the country in massive debt now and kicking the can down the road is completely wrong.

The plunging oil prices over the past few months have brought to light a failing of socialism that Hugo Chavez is now having to deal with.  When he was awash in oil revenues, he could afford to give it away and pretend that his utopia was working, and the inefficiencies could be smoothed over.  However, reality set in, and he had his hat in hand, returning to the evil capitalists for what might be called a bailout.

President Hugo Chávez, buffeted by falling oil prices that threaten to damage his efforts to establish a Socialist-inspired state, is quietly courting Western oil companies once again.

Until recently, Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies here into a corner by nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with tax authorities and imposing a series of royalties increases.

But faced with the plunge in prices and a decline in domestic production, senior officials here have begun soliciting bids from some of the largest Western oil companies in recent weeks — including Chevron, Royal Dutch/Shell and Total of France — promising them access to some of the world’s largest petroleum reserves, according to energy executives and industry consultants here.

It’s like that whole idea of government control isn’t working out for them.  Odd, that.

Yes YOU, if you opposed the auto maker bailout, want the economy to fail.  YOU are a reckless ideologue.  YOU don’t want to solve problems.  YOU want the US to suck up a Depression.  YOU are extraordinarily irresponsible.

So says Harry Reid and the Left side of the blogosphere.  If you want fiscal responsibility out of our government, you’re irresponsible. 

And in January, this line of thinking will hold even more sway in Washington, DC.  Hold on to your wallets, ladies and gentlemen.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.