Cash checking and payroll advice service in San Francisco, California, November 18, 2006 (Orin Zebest)

The stimulus, it is true, has been a success. Jobs have been saved and the worst is averted. With unemployment figures hovering near 10 percent, two thirds of the stimulus money has yet to be spent. Already the left is calling for more funding however with a so called jobs bill recently accepted by the US Senate.

The jobs bill includes modest measures like tax breaks for small businesses—always a nice thing to do, recession or no recession. But that’s not enough according to some of the more liberal economists who call upon Washington to spend money directly to create, not just save, jobs. A plan that reeks of New Deal state intervention.

Lawmakers aren’t enthusiastic and they shouldn’t be. After narrowly passing a $154 billion bill last December, the House is currently ambivalent about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s small success even though it amounts to less than ten times the size of their previous stimulus package. Individual states and counties have begun subsidizing jobs already, using taxpayers’ dollars to help companies meet payrolls.

The morality here is extremely questionable. Basically, those employed have no choice but to pay, if only in part, the salaries of those who otherwise wouldn’t be, with local governments acting as middle men. That is not a proper function of government nor a proper spending of tax money. It is not the goverment’s place to force such responsibility upon its citizens.