Are There Any Adults Left?

Passing out money from a printing press is about as heady an experience as we mortals might ever hope to partake in and that's precisely what Congress is contemplating in its $150 billion giveaway.  Erroneously called a 'stimulus package,' the largess from our Potomac Potentates is akin to taking a diabetic to a desert smorgasbord--it's a form of cruel and inhumane treatment.

Moreover, it's premised on a craven motivation, which is to say it's a compulsory political move, the inevitable product of a culture that puts feelings ahead of efficacy.  But that's exactly what we should expect in an election year as our Beltway Bruins chest-thump their way to the podium to announce their own special brand of unhelpful assistance.

President Bush is living up to his well-earned reputation in this regard by not taking a tough stand by telling us what we don't want to hear:  As evidenced by the 2001 handouts, a few hundred dollars passing through our hands to cash registers across America will make no measurable difference in a $13 trillion economy.  Indeed, this is merely the continued infantilization of the electorate, which takes its place along side the liberals' health care reform nostrums.  If you like the results FEMA produced you'll be thrilled with a government delivered health care program.

With the noteworthy exceptions of Republican candidates Giuliani and Thompson, whose voices seem lost in the din, no one is giving voice to the solution most likely to produce results:  Take measured but deliberative steps to invoke capital formation, job creation, and long-term investment, which is to say, reduce corporate tax rates from the current rate of 35%--the second highest on earth--to 25%, drop marginal tax rates, reduce capital gains to 5%, make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and then watch as an economic miracle unfolds.

But macroeconomic responses to problems ginned up by a fawning media intent upon magnifying these molehills into Everests have no political appeal and are, indeed, the third rail of policy recommendations.  In our age where we're obliged to externalize the sources of every failure, our most reliable--if unproductive--recourse is to the government, which is to say, other people's money. 

Of course, in the case of the feds, it's new money, because, as members of both parties apparently agree, cutting taxes commensurately with handouts defeats the purpose--so let's just print more and drown our sorrows in the deficit.  So as a nation of adolescents anxiously awaits their $300 or $500 checks, and those who made abysmally ill-informed decisions in the sub-prime market are immunized from the consequences, we can be assured that the underlying economic problems won't be resolved.

Which leads those of us with historical memories deeper than a Mayfly to ask:  Are there any adults left?