First- go read this. It’s short, I promise.

Let’s take this part as true:

And here’s the bottom line; despite what is said about Roosevelt, no government has tried to spend its way out of a recession the way Obama is intending to do, and the way Keynes recommended. We are watching a very grand experiment.

If we are getting Keynesian spending on a scale grander than the New Deal, then why do quite a few of us feel less than excited about this “very grand experiment”?

And I got an answer for that.

Because at it’s heart, the stimulus plan and even the mortgage plan all work to maintain the systems that got us into this mess to begin with. And they don’t address any of the fundamental causes of the economic collapse, just the symptoms.

The real issue is that free market capitalism is fundamentally flawed. It will ALWAYS lead to corruption and eventually collapse. The only way for a capitalist economy to remain healthy is with a good dose of regulation provided by a strong government. It is the government’s job to make sure that wages are neither too low nor too high. It is the government’s job to make sure that business is kept honest (and not allowed to sell you poisoned peanut butter). It is the government’s job to provide the services that should not depend on profit, like education and health care, so that no one is denied a basic right because they are they low person on the totem pole. It is the government’s job to regulate the economy so that it neither grows too fast or too slow. But for years (30 at least) the government has been doing none of that.

The crisis will end eventually. Sooner rather than later if Obama can help it. But if we don’t do something right now to change the way this country works at it’s core and instead patchwork another few years of life out of this broken system, then the problems will continue to worsen. And no amount of money printing will fix it. Instead we will have the inevitably high tax bill from the stimulus and tarp plans without any permanent fix.

Spending money is fine and dandy, but spend the political capital that comes with it. We need to make the changes to the system now, when it is weak.