Porkulus--But We've Got To Do Something

"But we've got to do something!" That's about the stupidest excuse for porkulus that I can imagine. "Something" is not always better than "nothing", and it's not always better than "something else". The Captain of the Titanic, after colliding with the iceberg, could have ordered the rear of the ship flooded, too--it would keep the ship balanced! That would be "something", but I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that that would have been smart. Or imagine this: there's a gas leak, let's light a match to see where it is!

Notes to President Obama:
1. "Bipartisan" means more than "I won so do it my way."
2. Campaigning is different than governing. Please learn the difference, quickly.
3. You are now being judged on your actions, not merely your rhetoric. And this action is a mistake. And I'm not the only one who thinks so:

The compromise economic stimulus plan agreed to by negotiators from the House of Representatives and the Senate is short on incentives to get consumers spending again and long on social goals that won't stimulate economic activity, according to a range of respected economists.

"I think (doing) nothing would have been better," said Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst who's usually an optimist, in an interview with McClatchy. He argued that the plan fails to provide the right incentives to spur spending...

Another reason that some analysts frown on the stimulus is the social spending it includes on things such as the Head Start program for disadvantaged children and aid to NASA for climate-change research. Both may be worthy efforts, but they aren't aimed at delivering short-term boosts to economic activity.

"All this is 25 years of government expansion jammed into one bill and sold as stimulus," said Brian Riedl, the director of budget analysis for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy research group.

I applaud the House Republicans for voting against this as a bloc, as was done with President Clinton's first budget. And what happened in the next election?

I hope Republicans in the Senate vote against this, even if the Three Stooges (Specter, Collins, Snowe) continue to be suckered into voting for it.