I enjoy reading Daniel Henninger’s economic columns in the Wall Street Journal. Last week’s “Obama’s ‘Hair of the Dog’ Stimulus” was excellent. If I do say so myself, the Jeubs could have written it!
In our audio CD, Cheaper by the Baker’s Dozen, Wendy and I lay out principles to frugal living. This was a tough sell a couple years ago when markets were soaring and lavish living was “in.” We advise people to live frugally even when times are good, but that frugal living keeps our focus on more important things like God and family. Our talk shows how “frugal and fruitful” lives sustain families through the best and the worst of times.
We voted for Bush twice, but we weren’t fans of his spending policies. Bloated pork-barrel spending got us into a heap-load of mess, the subprime-mortgage crises one of the biggies. But President Obama’s so-called “stimulus” has blown the lid off spending: the largest spending bill in the history of America. It is downright Orwellian to call this a “stimulus” bill for the bill will do the exact opposite. (See here.)
You see, the economic fundamental of the spending bill is convoluted, absolutely twisted. Keynesian economics believes spending money will get us out of recession. So, the government has poured hundreds of billions of tax-payer money into programs that Congress didn’t have time to debate. Rather than tax dollars being given back in the form of tax cuts or credits (heaven forbid, the people may save the money!), money is dumped into the economy. As Henninger puts it, “Frugality and prudence are suppressed and the compulsion to spend that got us into this mess is promoted as a necessity.”
I oversee a website for academic team-policy debaters called Blue Book Report. The lead article this morning links to a Reason.com article comparing India’s deregulation policies to America’s new regulation policies. America grows suspicious with deregulation, but the reality is that India–a poor country because of regulation–displays the proof that deregulation works.
So, it is a mess. There is really no “out” of this in sight. Wendy and I are slotted to speak in June at one of the largest home-school conferences in the nation, the Christian Home Educators of Colorado. We’ll be speaking on Cheaptr by the Baker’s Dozen, and our focus will be on how families should adapt to the economic hard times that are upon us now, and apparently are getting worse. It will be good.
About Chris & Wendy Jeub
