Logic #1: There is only so much money in the world.  And the U.S. government has seemingly just borrowed what little was left.  OK, great, at least now we have access to it.  But do we?  Can you knock on the door of your congressperson and simply ask for a check?  No, it will have to make its way through the Keynesian strainer (more on that later).  And if nearly all available funds are tied up in the federal government, where does small business (the ones who employ over half the country’s private sector workforce) get funding to really put people back to work?

Logic #2: Government spending is a boondoggle for waste.  This isn’t just my logic – check out what other folks perceive with this Gallup poll.  Our government is dumping borrowed money into the Keynesian strainer.  In a nutshell, the Keynesian model would have the federal government fund the digging of one hole so that it could fund the filling of the same whole, thus putting people to work, earning wages and taxable income, which then fill the coffers of the government via income and sales tax revenue – quite simply a circulation of money.  I suppose this model would be of some benefit if every dollar borrowed where injected directly into the economy, but we all know that isn’t the case.  I also suppose Keynesianism would work beautifully if the government actually had money and didn’t have to borrow it.

Logic #3: The size of government and the size of those governed are inversely proportional.  Perhaps you like this and if so you probably love our federal government right about now.  Getting back to the strainer, I think you know what happens when the strainer begins getting plugged up – less gets through.  I see this happening with the stimulus funds as more special interest and unions start clogging the pores of the strainer.  Inevitably more money stays with those in power instead of making it down to where it is needed.  Yes the people in power can create jobs (in the government) with that money, but much less efficiently and with much more dependency on the government, which needs more and more money (tax revenue) to grow more jobs, etc, etc.  Put a big fish in a tank with hundreds of smaller fish.  Over time the big fish eats the small fish and for his efforts he gets bigger and stronger.  Someday he’ll eat all the little fish and if you do not step in to supplement the big fish, he will die.  China will not supplement our big fish much longer.  Our big fish needs to lean out and learn to do more with less.

Logic #4: You do not fix a leaky boat by punching more holes in the hull.  Similarly, you do not spend your way out of a deep recession by adding to already record deficits. 

Logic #5: It failed miserably before.  So why would we believe this time it will succeed?  Keynesian stimulus failed under Hoover and Roosevelt in the 1930s, it did next to nothing for Ford in the 1970s and Bush 43, and it created the “lost decade” in Japan in the 1990s.  What’s that urban definition of insanity again? Something about doing something the same way over and over and expecting a different outcome?