If one needs a laugh in the last days of the stay-at-home orders, watch Brewster’s Million. The time will be well worth spending. And if you need more stress, think about a federal government spending at least $4 trillion in under 45 days. All that money will be paid by our kids. What are we doing to them?
Brewster’s Millions provides comic relief to generations of Americans. The massive national debt will provide long-term economic pain to generations of Americans.
Congress and the Federal Reserve’s spending spree to address the coronavirus pandemic is wasteful and poorly targeted. Some stimulus is necessary due to government action to shut down the economy, but thoughtlessly giving away trillions of dollars is a poor choice if the goal is to reinvigorate the economy. As seen, Federal Reserve intervention has created “zombie companies” companies, large publicly traded companies vacuumed up funds meant for Main Street, and the two trillion dollar stimulus is likely to become a hotbed of fraud.
Over at the Libertarian Republic, I compare the reckless government spending to Brewster’s Millions, a classic film starring Richard Pryor, where the plot highlights the difficulty of spending huge sums of money is a short period of time. A skill, politicians of all stripes have mastered.
In the post, I analyze the how the CARES Act and the Feds have decided to allocate trillions of dollars and note how quickly government can act when it involves frittering away taxpayer dollars.
Perhaps, a greater problem than poorly targeted stimulus, is how future generations will have to pick of the tab, a tab that is unlikely to do much good for Americans now. As I wrote:
Congress and the president certainly spent more money than anyone ever thought possible, in a few months. Whether these elected officials keep their jobs or needed to spend even more money for voters to be satisfied, is to be determined in November, 2020 by the recipients of the federal giveaways.
What is certain however, is that the children of this nation will inherit the debt. Lots and lots of debt. Seventy-seven percent of the U.S national debt was incurred by three presidents – George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Simply, in 2001, at the end of the Clinton administration, our national debt was only $5.791 trillion. When all the giveaways are completed, the national debt will be well over $26 trillion. The portion of every citizens’ debt today is about $ $72,000; and likely to exceed $82,000 per person in six months.
Since it is highly unlikely anyone alive today will offer to even start paying off the debt, yes, children, it is to a certainty, you will inherit the debt.
Brewster’s Millions provides comic relief to generations of Americans. The massive national debt will provide long-term economic pain to generations of Americans.