Another New Deal

And that's why we call them tax and spend liberals:

The nation’s battered economy needs an old-fashioned “Rooseveltian lift” of regulatory reforms and government spending on the infrastructure, clean energy and other sectors, U.S. Sen. John Kerry said yesterday.

Kerry, facing a re-election challenge from Republican Jeff Beatty, rejected GOP calls for more tax rebates to stimulate the economy, as was done last spring.

“I am for a stimulus package. I am not for a stimulus package that just sends out checks,” said Kerry at a Boston Herald editorial meeting yesterday.

Instead, Kerry said the nation needs to spend more in areas that will both help the economy in the short run and long run -- such as on roads and bridges, clean energy initiatives and life sciences.

Let's keep in mind here that government expenditures are not simply manna from heaven. It is money that is either taken from the taxpayers and then re-distributed or borrowed from future generations. Therefore, in order for this to make sense you have to believe that the government will spend this money in a manner that will prove more beneficial to the economy than if taxpayers -- you know, the people that actually operate within the economy -- spent or invested it. It's a proposition that I find highly dubious at best.

Claims by Joe Biden notwithstanding, this is not the most important election in our lifetimes. The last one was easily more important -- and we really dodged a bullet.