In light of the news about stimulus job creation statistics not being as advertised — complete with made-up Congressional districts — I offer another surprisingly relevant insight from Mises’ Human Action. Turns out there is a reason stimulus advocates are resorting to trickery:

“If government spending for public works is financed by taxing the citizens or borrowing from them, the citizens’ power to spend and invest is curtailed to the same extent as that of the public treasury expands. No additional jobs are…

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“[A] government can spend or invest only what it takes away from its citizens… its additional spending and investment curtails the citizens’ spending and investment to the full extent of its quantity.”

-Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 4th ed., (Irvington-on-Hudson New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996 [1949], p. 744.

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President Bush’s $400 billion budget deficits were the largest in history. He deserved every bit of criticism he got for his big-spending ways.

Now comes news that the budget gap is up to $1.4 trillion. President Obama has broken Bush’s record by a trillion dollars. It took him less than a year.

A trillion.

Wow.

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People are often surprised to hear how similar President Obama’s policies are to President Bush’s. They shouldn’t be. One may be a Republican and the other a Democrat, but make no mistake. Bush and Obama are two peas in a pod:

-Bush signed a $700 billion bank bailout bill. Obama continued the policy. And he extended it to other sectors, such as the automobile industry.

-Bush tried fiscal stimulus twice while in power. With some help from the Bush team, Obama oversaw the…

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Welcome to a very special Inaugural Edition of LibertyWeek with your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist and Special Guest Ivan Osorio. We get started with The Day in Wikipedia and the Tweet of the Week, and then we discuss the many celebratory balls that can be found around town to mark the beginning of the new presidency. Bank of America headlines the next segment with its request for an additional $20 billion in bailout money, and then we look into…

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When President Bush leaves office today, will the capital be warmer or colder than when he was sworn in eight years ago?

It’s not scientifically meaningful, but it is interesting.

Bush has been heavily criticized for doing precious little to curb our emissions of carbon dioxide. During his eight years in office, atmospheric CO2 levels climbed by over four percent.

So what did Bush’s dilly-dallying produce in terms of deadly global warming? The temperature at noon in Washington DC will give us one…

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The Bush Administration is planning to use money from the $700 billion financial system bailout for an auto industry bailout.  To do that, it is seizing on the fact that the bailout statute contains a very broad definition of “financial institution,” which the Administration claims includes virtually any institution, financial or not.  The bailout statute defines “financial institutions” eligible for the bailout as  ”any institution, including, but not limited to, any bank, savings association, credit union, security broker or dealer, or insurance company.”   Never…

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