Does Stimulus Spending Work?
After the housing bubble burst, the Bush and Obama administrations turned to stimulus in an effort to “create jobs.” Does such spending lead to economic improvement? Prof. Antony Davies examines the data to see how increases in federal spending relate to economic growth from 1955 to the present. The evidence shows that there is no connection between federal spending and economic improvement; instead, stimulus money only increases government debt. After three years of stimulus spending, the unemployment rate remains at 9 percent. “One thing that has changed,” Davies says, “is that our government is now $4.6 trillion further in debt than it was before the stimulus efforts.”
__________________
Some more true cartons from Dan Mitchell’s blog on the President’s love of big government.
Is Government a Repulsive Spouse or Spoiled Child?
January 24, 2013 by Dan Mitchell
Regular readers know that I get very excited when I see signs that more and more people are realizing that the real fiscal problem is big government. Even if the sound analysis comes from foreigners or international bureaucracies.
Deficits and debt are bad, to be sure, but they are best understood as symptoms of the underlying disease of excessive spending.
With that in mind, we have two cartoons that correctly identify the real threat to America’s future.
Here’s Lisa Benson showing the President enjoying a dance with his first love at the inaugural.
And here’s a Jerry Holbert cartoon capturing the rapacious appetite of a bloated public sector and the impact on society.
As you can see here and here, it’s quite similar to the theme used with great effectiveness by Eric Allie.
Except Holbert seems to emphasize deliberate destructiveness, rather than the blundering incompetence in the Allie cartoons.
But the net effect is still the same. Big government is counter-productive government.
The Daily Hatch 