Roman Around

Now they’re using the word “trillion” … again. Only this time in a new place.

Sure, they can write “beefier” and “meatier” – because that makes it sound so substantive, so industrious. 

Michelle Malkin uses the words “crappier” and “boondoggle.” 

Throw in a “pathetic” and a “just wait, they’re not finished yet” from me, along with any number of expletives and synonyms for “monumental waste” you can come up with and you’ve got the latest stuffer for the deficit stocking – the Stimulus Package!

As Malkin points out, the size of it has grown “from $300 billion to $500 billion to $600 billion to $1 trillion in less than a month.”

If there’s any indication that it will stop metastasizing, I’m not seeing it.

Besides, what difference does it really make at this point when the word “trillion” has been raped of its enormity? Too many Americans are numb to it all by now.

“Economic Downturn” this.

“Recession” that.

People are at the point of saying, “Just take care of the damn thing already. One trillion, ten trillion, who cares anymore? Just fix it.”

I’ve heard it. More than a few times.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

With the unemployment rate now expected to hit 9% without aggressive intervention, Obama aides and advisers have set $600 billion over two years as “a very low-end estimate,” one person familiar with the matter said. The final number is expected to be significantly higher, possibly between $700 billion and $1 trillion over two years.

Transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter denied any decisions have been made on the scope of the plan. “Any speculation on size or scope is premature at this time,” she said.

Anyone who believes that, stand on your head.

Actually, to be fair, there is probably some truth in what Cutter is saying. It’s a safe bet that the team is simply not sure at this time exactly how many trillions they may be looking to use to “stimulate” the economy.

The general sense among economists being canvassed by the Obama team is that “every day there’s a new bad number,” one of the people familiar with the matter said. “And people’s sense of what the appropriate stimulus is rises” with the news.

Recall the extraordinary success of President Bush’s big stimulus package back in February. $168 billion were spent in the form of stimulus checks sent out to taxpayers.

What a collosal waste.

Yet, the growth of this latest stimulus package has been very quick … and something to behold.

Recall Obama’s campaign trail rhetoric when he talked of a $175 billion rescue plan.

Last month, a gang of executive bigwigs – from Time Warner, Wachovia and Goldman Sachs – told Big Bam that the package needed to be more than $300 billion to be effective. That number more than doubled the figure being proposed by congressional Democrats at the time.

Only a few days later, talk of a stimulus package in the $500 billion neighborhood ensued. ABC commentator George Stephanopoulos said he had spoken to New York Senator Chuck Schumer who thought the package needed to be in the $500-$700 billion range.

Wow, where did that come from?

Then, only a couple of days ago, U.S. News and World Report had a story titled: Barack Obama: How He Will Spend $600 Billion on Stimulus.

Yet another jump.

It reminds me of a very famous episode of I Love Lucy - the one where Lucy gets a job in a candy factory. (It was one of those “men and women switching roles” storylines so prevelant in those days). In it, Ricky tries to cook four pounds of rice on the stove to feed four people. Four pounds! 

In a matter of minutes, madcap hijynx is breaking out in the Ricardo kitchen as the room begins filling up with rice overflowing relentlessly from the pot. It just keeps coming … and coming … and coming … pouring over onto the floor in exponential quantities, endlessly …

This is the image conjured up in my mind as the Obamacrats continue to toss around a trillion here, a trillion there. It just keeps coming. The pile of falling rice keeps growing.

In fact, I think I’m going to refer to this stimulus package as “Ricky’s Rice” from now on.

And now – just like with all the bailout plans, in all of their various incarnations and configurations - the “t” word has officially been attached the so-called stimulus pacakge.

Hello, ceiling?

This is a game that is as dangerous as it is moronic.

I just don’t understand why the concept of letting Americans keep more of their own money just doesn’t sink in as a viable option? No Obamalicious redistribution would be necessary. No crushing multi-generational tax burdens would have to be created.

Why not create a genuine “new deal” and devise a massive tax cut program as an incentive to stimulate the economy? Allow a one-time aggressive tax holiday of some kind to allow people the opportunity to pay off some debt, infuse their own money into the economy, or even put some into the bank?

Use that as a stepping stone.

A plan involving public works and infrastructure programs is not the way the economy will be brought around, despite O’s wish to revamp FDR’s America.

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”

Yup.

Anyway you slice this, it is astonishing. This is a trillion dollars in stimulus package money we’re talking about here.

A trillion.

Unreal.

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