Why Pork and not Economics?

Many of those who have been criticizing Obama’s stimulus package have been arguing that it’s filled with pork that won’t create jobs or help to end the recession.  That’s true.  But, the really important issue with the stimulus is that it just won’t work and I’d like to hear a lot more about that from the media.  

Government gets money in one of three ways: through taxation, borrowing, or inflation.  Borrowing just increases taxes further down the line.  Inflation lowers the value of money for everyone and redistributes some of that wealth to the government, essentially making it a tax on money.  

Fighting pork in the stimulus bill is fine, but it doesn’t get at what I think is the more important issue.  The stimulus cannot work.  If borrowing and spending lead to prosperity, then we would be in the Bush Boom right now.  The only way out of the recession is to let markets work freely rather than creating more uncertainty than the government already has by threatening businesses with higher future taxes or inflation.