It's like Christmas for Democrat interest groups

By Thomas Lifson

The stimulus bill written by the Democrats looks like a Christmas wish list for every interest group in their coalition. The "Review and Outlook" column in today's Wall Street Journal has some startling facts about it. By the Journal's reckoning, only 12% of then $825 billion is going for anything that could plausibly related to stimulating the economy. Instead, payoffs predominate:

... some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments -- that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There's $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren't job creators.

As the Journal notes, in all likelihood the spending in this bill will go right into the "baseline" for spending the following year. The prospects of the Democrats ratcheting spending down in the future are small to nil.

A permanent increase in the size of the government is at hand, along with a strengthening of the Democrat base groups like unions and transfer payment recipients.

Hat tip: Dennis Sevakis

Update -- Randall Hoven writes:

Here is the part that got me. The bill includes this specific language:

"No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools."

The Democrats are spending $825B, including $66B on education, but they specifically exclude private K-12 schools from getting one dime of it. What more do you need to know?