Robert Reich, former Clinton administration Labor Secretary, who, as indicated in the Wikipedia post bearing his name "has dedicated his career to making worthless people more worthless", has done the country a tremendous favor. He has given us a most eye-opening glimpse into the true meaning of "economic stimulus" in Obamessiah speak. In so doing, he has hopefully provided the noose with which the current administration will be hanged in 2010 and 2012.

I am speaking, of course, of his recent "testimony" - presumably in his capacity as Obama economic advisor - before some banana-republic congressional conference chaired by congressman Charlie("let's reinstitute the draft so we can get more white kids killed")Rangel. This spectacle first came to my attention via Rush, and also was a hot topic on Tom Sullivan's show yesterday. Now, it can be found on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opxuUj6vFa4

The lowlights are as follows. In opining on the objectives of the forthcoming "stimulus" legislation, Mr. (not, to my knowledge "Doctor", as suggested by the illiterate Rangel) Reich said that the money should be allocated with the greatest speed possible (good!), for "high social return" (?). Amplifying on this point, he infamously proclaimed that "the money should not go to highly-skilled professionals, or to white male construction workers." Instead, (presumably the preponderance of) stimulus money should be allocated to "the long-term unemployed... people who are not necessarily white construction workers or high-skilled professionals." For those still struggling to discern the direction in which the Obamalama wishes to take the country - whether his nods in the direction of moderation are mere head-fakes - the Reich Manifesto ought to provide a clue.

If I sound like I take offense at the notion of hundreds of billions of debt-financed federal expenditures being allocated on the basis of criteria other than the twin, and mutually-reinforcing, goals of economic recovery and taxpayer value, then I have succeeded in communicated my displeasure. And, with apologies to Seinfeld, I wish to make it crystal clear that I am not offended as a (mostly) white male; I am offended as an American and a taxpayer! Though offensive on many levels, the Reich Manifesto is offensive mostly because it reveals, with utmost and brazen clarity, that this claque of super-annuated student council candidates, that the below-the-median crowd has put into power, cares not a whit about economic recovery or getting the unemployment rate back to pre-recession levels. If they did, they would take the greatest pains to ensure that deficit-financed stimulus be allocated in ways that maximize (taxpayer) return. Like it or not, that goal would require putting the money in the hands of people who have the skills to create value. And, like it or not, in many cases, this would mean "white male construction workers".

For those of us who fancy themselves New Deal historians, the Reich video is no surprise. As is becoming increasingly clear via recent scholarship, the New Deal was an abject failure as an economic enterprise. It was, however, a masterful exercise in big-government propaganda. I'm reminded again of the famous encounter FDR had with his Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, in the latter's office. Morgenthau had a sign on his desk, intended to guide his subordinates, which read "does it contribute to the recovery?" When he saw this, FDR sniffed "this isn't about recovery; this is politics" - at a cost in human misery measurable on the cataclysmic scale. And so it is with the new administration. A President with no executive experience, who's goals in life appear to have been to (a) spend other people's money, and (b)"remake America", has been handed the opportunity of a lifetime. As his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, put it: "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste".

The public expects Washington to spend money, and Washington will be happy to oblige. The public thinks it's buying infrastructure, but it's only half right. It's going to buy the infrastructure of a political machine, whether it wants to or not, and at a very dear price. Further, as Congressman Rangel candidly explained in the video, the administration needn't worry about what the middle class might think of this mad (social) scientist experimentation - they'll be way to preoccupied with taking care of themselves to raise a fuss. Where does this leave us? A massive exercise in social engineering, doomed to fail as a massive subsidy to bad behavior, bad culture, bad thinking, and bad ideas, resulting finally in, as Holman Jenkins described it in the title of his recent WSJ piece, "A Lost Decade". Ten years from now, they'll still be saying it's Bush's fault, but I'm telling you now: by then, it won't be.