I Don't Get This Whole Stimulus Thing

OK, so we want to spend more money on infrastructure and other goodies to create jobs. So saith the President in his his speech. Since we now have a debt commission, it looks to me like new stimuli is just moving money from one government pocket to another. If the debt commission has time to work with, then it's just moving government money from one year to another. This leads to a couple of points.

• If rearranging spending leads to jobs, why not make these changes permanent?


• No one has explained how letting the government, which can't even balance a budget, much less make a profit, can create economic growth. (Well, they explained it last time, but it didn't work they way they said, so there's no reason to believe it will now.)


• How is more of this a good thing?


• We want to spend some of this stimulus money for teacher salaries. Borrowing money to pay salaries is a good thing? Isn't that an indication of a financially doomed organization?


• If printing money and handing it out didn't work before, why will it work now?


• Abraham Lincoln's administration may have built railroads, but how is that relevant? Compare the transportation infrastructure of 1860 and 2011 and see if you can find a difference.


• Roads and bridges, roads and bridges, roads and bridges. How does this lead to jobs? Are there any businesses that aren't expanding because they can't get their goods from point A to point B? Any?

Seriously, I don't get it at all.

Update: Here's B-Daddy's take.