100 Days With a Hole In Your Pocket
Rory Cooper /
It Must Grow on Trees
- The Stimulus Bill: In his first 100 days, President Obama signed a $787 billion “stimulus” bill that with interest totals $1.1 trillion in new spending. At no time during these 100 days did anyone on Capitol Hill read the entire bill, despite its rapid of growth of government in size and scope.
- Is Not Temporary: All projections on stimulus spending assume that none of the new government programs will continue ad infinitum, which goes against the Washington trend of making programs longer, bigger, but never over. As Milton Friedman said: “Nothing is more permanent as a temporary government program.”
- CBO on the Stimulus Bill: If even some programs become permanent, the CBO estimates that the true cost of the stimulus bill could be over $3.27 trillion. The CBO also projected that the stimulus bill would actually hurt the economy.
- Earmark Love: President Obama came into office pledging to “slash earmarks to no greater than 1994 levels” of 1,318 per budget. In his first 100 days, he signed an omnibus spending bill that contained 9,287 earmarks, the second most in U.S. history, including funding for tattoo removal and a Buffalo Bill museum.
- Spreading the Wealth: President Obama has been spending through the tax code in order to “spread the wealth around.” He passed the Making Work Pay Credit and increased the Hope Scholarship Credit, the EITC, and child tax credit; meanwhile, he has proposed hiking taxes by $300,000 (over 10 years) for 3.2 million higher-income tax filers to pay for more spending in his budget. (more…)