Writes Harvard University economics professor Greg Mankiw in the NYTimes:
Over the last century, the largest increase in the size of the government occurred during the Great Depression and World War II. Even after these crises were over, they left a legacy of higher spending and taxes. To this day, we have yet to come to grips with how to pay for all that the government created during that era — a problem that will become acute as more baby boomers retire and start collecting the benefits promised.
Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, has said, “You don’t ever want to let a crisis go to waste: it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”
What he has in mind is not entirely clear. One possibility is that he wants to use a temporary crisis as a pretense for engineering a permanent increase in the size and scope of the government. Believers in limited government have reason to be wary.
The full article can be found here.
Since when is it a surprise that politicians use or cause, or take perceived crisis to pass their pet projects? See bush and Wall Street 700B bail out, or the war—after 9-11….
Same game different team with the ball…
Nothing is black or white. There are positive things that can come out of this spending - alternate energy - saving millions of homes from being left vacant - roads - medical upgrades. And a country that doesn’t go down the tubes past redemption.
I agree…but there are also negative things that can come out of this spending…read the latest post by Jeffrey Sachs, for example.