Stimulus Package, Part III

Last week I caught an episode of Larry King Live on CNN. Larry had on a panel that included Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki (of Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame) to discuss the stimulus package proposed by Congress. One of the first questions was something along the line of "Do you think the stimulus package is a good idea?" None of the panelists thought that mailing out a bunch of tax rebates would actually pull the economy out of recession. But all of them agreed that "Congress had to do something."

I have two objections to the "They have to do something" line of reasoning.

First, I question the whole assumption that Congress has to do anything at all. As a fiscal conservative, I believe that the government should tread lightly in interfering with the economy. Smoothing out every vagery in the unemployment rate is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they established the Constitution to "promote the general welfare." Making the budget deficit worse than it already is strikes me as trading short term gain for long term pain.

But let's say we accept that Congress has to "do something." They're only our elected representatives, after all. No one expects them to display enough moral courage to stand in the way of buying off the voters in an election year. However, shouldn't they at least do something that was going to work? I have yet to read or hear one commentator that approves of the proposed stimulus package. No one thinks that the current plan will have the desired effect of pulling the U.S. out of recession. So why are we doing it?