Obama, Oranges and Our Economy

Economic recession! The oft-repeated words are like a sentence of gloom over our future happiness and prosperity.  But following these phrases we often hear a different tune, sung by our goverment of stimulus, bailouts and dedicated efforts by our public servants to turn this economic downturn up.

“Bailout” and “stimulus” bills sound good at first glance, but they seem to disregard one important fact: an economy can only be truly built by the people—by their seeking for their best interest and making decisions accordingly.   As well meaning as President Obama and our government may be, their interference in the economy does not have power to produce the promised results. Their “aid” is artificial and superficial, because it is not based on the principles that actually govern the growth of an economy.  In short, the stimulus has no true power to move the economy forward to recovery–especially considering that the vast majority of the bill (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) is focused on propagating programs and handing out handouts (like $5 billion for home weatherization grants, and $14.2 billion for a one-time payment of $250 for retirees, disabled people, SSI recipients, railroad retirees and disabled veterans) instead of invigorating the economy.

Surely it is good to help out those in need, and we certainly all know how nice it is to receive a hand when we are down. But when the government tries its hand in social charity and economic stimulus…well, just consider the following:

Let’s say the economy is a vast orchard of orange trees which has been damaged by a deep frost. Many trees are losing their oranges and some even seem on the verge of dying completely. Now a farmer comes along, takes a look at the struggling orchard, borrows loads of oranges from his fellow farmers with the promise that he will help save all their trees, and then proceeds to hurl them all into the orchard.

Not the wisest thing to do for the orchard, is it? However, this is basically what the Recover and Reinvestment Act is doing to our economy. 787,000,000,000 oranges just got chucked all over our country, so you’d better hope you can catch one or two—but please don’t take too many!  I’ll need some left over for my grandkids in a couple of decades. But if not, maybe there will at least still be $250 checks passing around when I retire. One can only hope.