The economy is in a slump, so the government must step in and help stimulate it so we can have prosperity again.

That sounds like a reasonable statement, so what’s wrong with it? A lot of things. The first is that it’s a magician’s trick. The way it works is that the government quietly takes money from the taxpayer and then loudly gives it back to them in the form of a stimulus package, while confidently declaring that this is going to get the economy roaring again. But all they’re really doing is shifting money from one pocket to another. But that’s not really magic, that’s a con game.

The second thing wrong with it is that we don’t have the money to pay for the stimulus. The government is already broke and going deeper in debt every day, so where is the money going to come from? The government simply borrows it, which solves that problem, at least until the debit becomes due with interest, and that’s when the government has to tax its people to pay for it.

The third thing wrong with it is that when we pay back what we borrow with interest we end up paying more in taxes than the government gives us in the stimulus. Yet, somehow they say when we spend more in taxes than we get in services that’s supposed to revive the economy.

The fourth thing wrong is that there is no guarantee that the stimulus will stimulate anything. In other words, the government is gambling that their efforts to revive the economy will work, but if it doesn’t then the taxpayers are on the hook for billions of dollars for nothing. What the government is doing is gambling with our money.

The fifth thing wrong is that, even if this money does stimulate the economy by providing jobs, those jobs are only temporary. When the stimulus money runs out, the jobs end and then the economy goes right back to where it started before the stimulus was given.

Any stimulus money spent is not an investment like the magicians in Washington want us to believe, but is a charitable donation given by our government from the taxpayers without our consent.