Simulating (not Stimulating) Responsible Government

The $787 billion stimulus package hasn't stimulated economic or job growth. It's just delayed the sort of tough cuts and political decisions that are going to be necessary down the road. It has also ballooned the deficit and threatens to beggar our children with new taxes.

Locally, most stimulus money went to school districts. What did it stimulate? The protection of teachers' salaries and benefits, not learning. While millions more went to protect the welfare of poor people. Nice, but hardly stimulative. My print column is up.

UPDATE: More on the Faux Recovery from David Harsanyi:

No, this time the administration will renew its focus on stimulus through a new "green jobs" boondoggle. President Obama announced this week that Washington will offer $2.3 billion in tax credits for "clean energy" jobs. Using his very own pie-in-the-sky calculations, it puts the cost of every job at a tax-financed $135,000.

The uncalculated part of the above equation is this: Bogus jobs kill real jobs. At Madrid's King Juan Carlos University, for instance, a study found that in Spain -- the very country Obama has held out as the exemplar of greening (and with only a 19-plus percent unemployment rate!) -- every green job created had destroyed 2.2 jobs in other sectors of the economy.