Are we, as a country, never going to allow a downturn in our economy again?

That's the question.

Are we never going to allow a downturn in our American economy again, no matter the cost?

There is word out right now, on the wires, that both President Bush and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are both quoted, saying they'd be for another "stimulus package" for the American people, to push forward the economy.
(Link to story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081020/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown)

Holy cow.

You gotta be kidding me.

Let's get this straight.

We already had the largest debt, ever, in the history of the country, going into this year, thanks to this President and his direction (I can't call it leadership).

Then the nation's banks start tanking and we come up with, oh, what was it? 700 billion dollars to bail out the banks (that actually may end up already being a trillion dollars or thereabouts).

That boosted our debt even larger and deeper by a fewfold.

And now, like they're running for office themselves, George and Ben want to spit out more money to us so we can go spending.

They want to make it at least as large as the last boost we gave ourselves so it would be in the range of 168 million dollars.

But wait. There's more.

Some economists are saying it should be twice that size.

Talk about short-term, shortsighted vision.

The one who started this talk was Barack Obama and he's running for office.

Now, I'm an Obama supporter but this part of his platform never got my support. I thought it was just panerding to win votes. It is short-sighted and would only have a very brief benefit to the economy and country.

Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chimed in, saying she'd support it. I thought that was purely to help her friend and fellow Democrat Obama. I thought it would go away.

Now this.

So it gets me back to my original question.

Do we not have any patience or allowance any more for a downturn in the economy?

Do we not realize that there are business cycles that have to be gone through?

You know, the old "Chauncey Gardner" statements from the movie "Being There" about there needing to be a dying season, in order to create the space for new growth.

I don't think we get it.

We all know we'll have to borrow--yes, borrow--this money, only to loan it back to ourselves.

And we'll probably have to borrow it from the Chinese, of whom we have no fondness, other than their propping up our economy.


Am I the only one who thinks this is blatantly stupid?