Speaker Freckles, Senate Majority Leader Fluffy, Rep. Peanut, and Sen. Blackie

Let me see if I’ve got this straight. The economy is in recession following years of wild spending on private contractors and unwanted embassies in Bush’s Iraq occupation, combined with tax cuts for the very rich. So what are we are going to do about it? Give everyone a tax rebate, plunging us even deeper into debt. Or, as Dartmouth Economics Prof. Andrew A. Samwick put it:

It is ironic that additional borrowing is prescribed as the remedy for a malady that arose from unwise borrowing.

Everyone loves Ronald Reagan now that he’s really dead so let’s bring back this old favorite: voodoo economics. That was the counterintuitive scheme that said money rich people were no longer contributing for the public good would trickle down and benefit us working stiffs. It caused Reagan’s successor, Bush Jr.’s father, to ban lip-reading and raise taxes, but we still wallowed in recession until Bill Clinton forced us to spend within our means.

So here we are again. But Samwick notes there’s a new buzzword this time.

Let’s drop the euphemism of “stimulus package” and call this agreement by its proper name: “deficit spending.”

When you and I get our $300, we will have two choices: go to Wal-mart and blow it on more cheap crap from China, or use it to pay down our credit card bills. Neither option stimulates our economy, although I’m sure the Chinese will laugh gleefully.

Wait, it gets better. Bush originally called for a “tax rebate,” which would imply that those receiving a check had actually paid into the system to begin with. But thanks to the bunny rabbits in Congress whose only concern is staying in office, coverage is now extended to retirees and people on public assistance, who never paid any taxes. And — hold on to your hat — even people who don’t live in this country.

[Fla.] U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite “reluctantly” voted for President Bush’s economic stimulus package this week, and her reasoning is prompting discord…

“The bill sends hundreds of millions of dollars to people who do not pay federal income taxes, including residents of Puerto Rico and territories like Guam,” she said in the news release. “I do not believe American taxpayer funds should be sent to foreign citizens who do not pay taxes.”

Residents of Puerto Rico were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917. Likewise for residents of Guam in 1950. They pay Social Security taxes and other federal levies, though not federal income taxes.

Somebody explain to me how giving American tax dollars to people in Guam will stimulate the economy in the United States. Suddenly, domestic “trickling down” sounds pretty good.

Bush had a bad idea: give us all a weensy and ineffectual tax rebate that can’t help and will de facto make things worse by increasing the deficit. Congress, instead of stopping him, is piling on.

Bush urged the Senate to pass the measure unchanged, as he has done several times since the deal was announced. But Senate leaders have said they would like to increase the size and the number of beneficiaries to receive the tax rebates in that package.

Enough already. I would gladly give up my rebate in return for a healthy economy like we used to have before another “tax and borrow” Republican hit the White House.

Samwick asks a great question, one for which there is only one answer.

This “stimulus bill” is really $150 billion worth of some future generation’s resources appropriated to finance our own consumption. Why are we entitled to pass on this additional debt?

We’re not.