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Pray a little more, work a little harder, save, wait, be patient and, most of all, live within our means. That's the American way. It's not spending ourselves into prosperity or taxing ourselves into prosperity. ~Mike Huckabee~

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Unless you're Amish, or you haven't been reading the news lately, you probably have heard of the new "stimulus" package. Trouble is, not many people know exactly what they think about it; or, if they do have a faint inkling on what their opinion is, they probably don't know why. However, if you are one of those few privileged individuals who actually know what's going on and what the effects are gonna be... you should run for president in 2012, cause you're probably the only one with the inside information. As for the rest of us, why should this matter to us? It's just another partisan gridlock in D.C. right? Well, to be honest, I just wish you were right...

So why should we care about what the government does? I mean, governments have been spending the money of the citizens ever since our ancestors figured out the whole idea of currency. ("My name Gog. I find nice rock. I like." "My name Ug. I like rock too." *sounds of scuffle, Gog screams* "My name Ug. I have nice rock.") However, what separates this from the rest of the wasteful spending we've seen in the past?

Well, the biggest thing that separates it is the sheer size of this sucker. Most of us can't even imagine $1 million, just forget a billion. So, let's put this into some easy numbers. The size of this "stimulus" package ($827 B) is equal to:

• Spending $1 Billion a DAY for 827 days (2.26 years).


• Spending $1 million a DAY for roughly 2,300 years.


• Spending $1,000 a DAY for 2.6 MILLION years.
  

So, you can see that this isn't milk money the government is throwing away, this is the real deal.

So, why should we care? Well, the problem most likely isn't going to land on the people who are now in office, which is why they can get away with it and not have to worry too much about repercussions. So, it's gonna be on our shoulders ("generation x"), to fulfill this debt. The fact is, we don't have the money to pay for this bill. It's not like the government can shuffle around in its pockets and pull out $827 Billion, it's just not gonna happen. Thus, we have to borrow it from foreign countries.

Psalm 37:21: "The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives;".
Proverbs 22:7: "The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender."

Is it any wonder then, that the Lord told the people of Israel not to borrow from foreign countries? (Deut 15:6, Deut 28:12) God saw what our government doesn't see: choices have consequences. This stimulus bill is a choice, and it is a bad one: Thus, it will have bad consequences.

Even if you're not a Christian, you can see the wisdom in the scriptures of old. The quote from Mike Huckabee is a great way to live life, folks. It's called fiscal responsibility, love it or leave it.


The argument eventually comes up going something like this: "Well, we got ourselves into this mess, we need to get ourselves out". I agree, actually. However, I just don't think that attempting to spend our way out is a great idea. It's hardly the lesson taught by history. The government apparently thinks that they can spend the way out of this hole, however that's never really done the trick in the long-run. It's short-term Keynesian policy in action. However, the point of this post isn't to discuss monetary and fiscal policy.

America, it's not spending that will help us here, it's saving and living inside of our means. Going into debt isn't a good way to get out of debt. (duh!)

Since when has the American way turned into a spendulous extravaganza thrown by the government? That's called Socialism. Welcome to the World of Barack Obama.


-Cheers