A Keynesian fever swept through Washington, D.C., as I wrote in my latest Townhall column:
… it must be admitted, a general lack of economics education being operative, that many people expect politicians to have a plan for government intervening in the economy to ward off a slowdown. They would reject the man who said the best thing we in Washington could do is to stay out of it, because we’ll only make things worse. Just so, some pagan societies turned to mystics to entice the gods to return Spring. Those ignorant of the greater cycles will always go with the guy with the best-sounding booga-booga.
Are media soothsayers murmuring about a possible recession? Well, unga buncombe, $150 billion economic stimulus plan! We give $600 to single man, $1,200 to couple, plus $300 for child! Not tax-payer, no problem! (But you too rich, sorry.)
How this is supposed to fix the economy is, gosh, magic. Either the money was already in the economy, confiscated from the productive sectors by the government to be given to the poor (to a straight-up Marxist redistributionist scheme termed a “tax rebate” so as not to fret conservatives), or it will be produced as if out of thin air.
