Spending Vs. Investing

If we listen closely to all the rhetoric carefully the Democrats call the Obama stimulus plan as investing and the Republicans call it spending. What is the difference? Waste! Government spending is generally wasteful. However, investing means the government and taxpayers will get a return on their investment. When have the taxpayers ever gotten a return on our tax dollars? I cannot think of any instance when this has happened. After all, if America got more than a dollar return for every dollar invested than spending would be great. Heck, why stop at 2 or 3 trillion dollars, we may as well pump more money into the economy. However, most realistic people living on planet earth know we do not get any payback for government spending. Besides, it is hard to measure the payback on government spending, it is mostly speculation. For this reason I believe the Republicans are correct that the Obama stimulus plan is nothing more than spending and we the taxpayers will be footing the bill for decades. Face it, the government cannot be trusted to run anything. Every business or large social policy the government runs or creates is bound to fail. Look at social security, medicare, and welfare that are now over 50% of our national budget and growing at a astronomical rate. Look at Frannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the IRS, and the Post Office are all losing valuable taxpayer dollars. We are being naive if we really think that the Obama stimulus plan that is putting us trillion of dollars will benefit us in the long run. Once Obama adds universal health care to our growing list of social programs bankrupting our government, the only way to get out of debt will be to tax Americans at outrageous rates of 50% or more. Just the interest on our debt will be hard enough to pay off without huge tax hikes. When this happens, the United States will officially be a socialized nation similar to many European countries. Capitalism will officially be dead and America will no longer be the land of opportunity. It will happen if our government does not learn to be fiscally responsible very soon and stop this ridiculous spending spree.