On behalf of my distinguished colleague Iain Murray, who is busy speaking at a very important press conference this morning, let me present his prepared remarks on the impending stimulus bill:

Remarks of Iain Murray, Director of Projects and Analysis, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Good morning. Others have already told you what an unutterable waste of money this so-called stimulus package is. I just want to make two points. First, that the American people have been misled about the nature of the bill, and…

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In today’s Wall Street Journal, the Brookings Institution’s Clifford Winston points out some critical pitfalls likely to face the infrastructure spending element of President-elect Obama’s “stimulus” plan:

One of the biggest killers of all is that states insist on allocating federal transportation funds through a politically devised formula. The result? Smooth, well-paved rural highways and worn-out urban roadways that are paved with a layer of asphalt too thin to withstand heavy use and are therefore in need of excessive, costly maintenance.

But don’t…

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Well, who can possibly be surprised by the revelation that “The federal government’s economic stimulus package will include investment in broadband Internet infrastructure and funds to upgrade and repair the national power grid alongside more traditional funding for road and bridge repair.”

Details, as usual, do not exist, other than the obvious golden chains that come with power grid investment: get the cash, but throw it away on inferior “renewable” investments, thereby draining future wealth and resources (for example, no fuel…

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