And neither do some Senators.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) says
it's total BS that the Progressive-Democrat-proposed $1 trillion in
Federal Wuhan Virus stimulus monies aimed at State and local governments would
benefit public sector unions. Whether public sector unions should or should not
benefit is a separate matter.
I'm being generous, though, in suggesting that such an intelligent
woman actually misunderstands.
Adding a trillion dollars, or any amount of money, to a
budget means—work with me, now—that budget has those added dollars to spend.
Earmark the trillion for specific purposes, or bar it from being used for
public unions. Do that by sending the money as cash and tracking serial
numbers. That still lets the recipient government move a different [trillion]
of dollars from a different part of its budget to benefit its public unions.
That's the fungibility of money. It can be moved around.
Then the Senator said this in all seriousness:
We need to fund government so that we can continue to
grow the economy….
Here are the Constitutionally authorized reasons for funding
the government:
to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence
and general Welfare of the United States
Nothing in there about "growing the economy," not
even under that general Welfare part. What is the general Welfare of the
United States is explicitly defined by the clauses of the rest of Article I,
Section 8.
Indeed, as has been demonstrated over the course of our
history and across a broad range of nations, the way to grow the economy is to
have a free market, capitalist economy with minimal government involvement.
In fine, the State and local governments don't need the
stimulus money; they need to step back, (in many cases) end the lockdowns, and
let the private economy function.
Eric Hines
