A Stitch in Haste

The first "stimulus package" (remember, you can't call it a tax rebate, since non-taxpayers are receiving it too) hasn't even commenced yet -- and Barack Obama is already calling for a second one?

To fix the economy, Obama proposed relief for homeowners and an additional $30 billion stimulus package to address the nation's economic woes. "If we can extend a hand to banks on Wall Street, we can extend a hand to Americans who are struggling," he said.

Of course, most of those "Americans who are struggling" are doing so, from a budgetary perspective, not because of oppressive federal income taxes -- that's reserved for the non-strugglers -- but by obscene FICA taxes that seize one-eighth of blue-collar workers' paychecks. Somehow I expect no "extended hands" from a (no-gridlock) Obama Administration on that front.

As I blogged previously: The cure for Republican fiscal recklessness from 2001 through 2006 will not be Democratic fiscal recklessness from 2009 through 2012.

More:

As I said at NASDAQ last September: the core of our economic success is the fundamental truth that each American does better when all Americans do better; that the well being of American business, its capital markets, and the American people are aligned.

Somebody please tell that to Big Labor (or, for that matter, John Edwards or Paul Krugman).