Don Boudreaux had this to say in a letter to the Chicago Tribune (see it here):
President-elect Obama prescribes fiscal stimulus as the cure for America's ailing economy ... Well let's see.
With the exception of a few years during the Clinton administration, the U.S. has run annual budget deficits continuously for the past four decades. And from 2002 through 2008, Uncle Sam ran budget deficits each year, totaling $2.13 TRILLION dollars. That's a frightful amount of fiscal stimulus, and yet the economy today is struggling.
Now with the bailout, the budget deficit for 2009 alone is projected to be close to $1 trillion - nearly seven percent of GDP, a figure much higher than at anytime since WWII. If deficit spending were good for the economy, Americans would now be, not on shaky ground, but in Shangri-la.
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