No one person is smart enough to intelligently spend $1.3 trillion dollars. No one group of people is smart enough either, let alone our country’s politicians, who have been given no special training (even if such existed) in dealing with such enormous sums and such complex matters as our national and world economies.
But aren’t there brilliant economists who advised the politicians? Well, we shouldn’t have to look further than the Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, for what passes for a talented and intelligent economist in our country. He made self-admitted careless and avoidable errors on his own tax returns for several years, ultimately owing $50,000 to the IRS, the agency he now is in charge of. Do we trust him and other intelligent economists to spend $1.3 trillion dollars?
Nonetheless, this is how much has been spent in the latest spending bill. Another has been proposed now for a modest $450 billion. It would be one thing if these bills contained only moral, infrastructure projects that would directly help people, but instead they are rife with spending on personal projects of Democrat congressmen and on immoral practices like embryo-destructive stem cell research.
People at my company are smart. Yet it takes 5,000 of us employees working an entire year to earn only $0.8 billion in revenue; our profit from that revenue is of course much less, but imagine the scope of this money we are borrowing at interest from other countries and foreign institutions: It would take using all my (good-sized) company’s revenue for 2,000 years to pay this debt back. To trust our nation’s politicians (whether Democrat or Republican) with such amounts, mortgaged on our backs and our children’s future, is insane. There is little chance that they will spend even a good portion of it in a wise way.
What can “save” our economy? Don’t look first to the government. Let’s look to one another. Let’s work hard, live frugally, help our neighbors out in whatever way we can, strive to live honest and virtuous lives, and treat others as we would have them treat us; in short, follow God’s way of living. No, it won’t turn the economy around in a week or a month or a year, but it will re-lay a solid foundation for our nation to build upon and make our nation and the world more just and a more authentically human place to live.
And may we continue to pray for our Lord’s Kingdom to come.
Yes, everything you said in the last paragraph is true, and I hope people do use this time to take a second look at how we as Americans are living and try to each make adjustments where each should to live within our means.
However, it is sad to hear you say, “there is little chance that they will spend even a good portion of it in a wise way.” I truly hope you are not this pessimistic. Yes, surely some of it will be spent unwisely, but I absolutely believe a good portion of it will be spent for good.
I’m looking forward to your more positive outlook during Lent!
Thanks for your comment, Jenny.
I do not know the detailed allotment of where all of the spending bill monies will go, so I hope that your belief that much of it will go to good activities is true.