"Stimulus" spending will harm recovery.(Inside Track)(American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009)(Brief article)

The House on January 28 passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the latest barrel of pork to be tossed into the recessionary pit. This time around, the misnamed stimulus would, in the language of a House press release issued prior to the vote, "create and save 3 to 4 million jobs, jumpstart our economy, and begin the process of transforming it for the 21 st century with $275 billion in economic recovery tax cuts and $550 billion in thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments with unprecedented accountability measures built in." (By the time the vote took place, the bill had been "trimmed" to $819 billion.)

All you really need to know about the plan is implied by the two numbers given: $275 billion in supposed benefits to taxpayers, and a figure exactly twice that amount that the federal government intends to bestow on itself and its primary beneficiaries. The $550 billion will include, among many other things:

* An $87 billion "temporary" increase in Medicaid ...