An honest question about the US stimulus bill

Perhaps some of you financial genuises can help me understand this:

If the US government cuts taxes by some $200 billion in this stimulus bill that Mr. Obama wants, where on earth are they going to get the money to spend the other $600-700 billion? Last time I checked, they were broke, too.

Do they borrow it from the banks they just helped bail out? Do they just buy some extra green ink and crank up the presses at the Federal Reserve?

All of this sounds a bit like "voo-doo" economics to me. But, hey, beggars can't be chosers and if it works for them, I might give it a try. Where's that darn stash of monopoly money?

 

1) Crank up the printing presses
2) Sell more treasuries
3) ? ? ?
4) Profit!

(old south park set - Underpants Gnomes)

 

And oh by the way, we are just killing our the future of this country.

Before this fiasco hit the fan, 9% of the US budget was interest payments on debt owed. Can you imagine what it is going to be like for future generations? 25-30%?

Imagine some kid in the near future waking up and realizing his past generation saddled him with a bill that demands 30% of every tax dollar go to pay to prior debt alone - before all the other entitlements and everything else in the budget.

 

Isn't the argument something along the lines of -- well, if the economy contracts too much, the government stands to lose a lot more money over the long haul in terms of lost tax revenue than it is spending right now to try to keep the economy from contracting.
Of course, that means this stimulus better damn work.

 

And if this was actually a stimulus bill it might.

 

Well, I figured I'd leave that argument for others to have....

 

You don't think the $5 million to finish the polar bear exhibit in Rhode Island will generate many jobs?

 

Sure it will. Right up until the exhibit is done.

 

My honest question on the stimulus bill: Do any the right-wingers wringing their hands over the government going into debt over the bill have a clue about how much the war in Iraq has cost us so far?

 

The smartest guys in the room at AIG who wrote the uncovered CDSs will cause far greater harm to this country than any terrorist could dream.

 

Yeah, but they had a job and weren't collecting welfare.

 

Only issue I have with the stimulus is that, it seems, if you ain't a construction worker, you are still screwed if you are jobless.