A mighty expensive stimulus

The latest estimate for the cost of the stimulus package that Obama will ask Congress to approve is $850 billion. That is, as Playbook points out keying off a Washington Post story:

“ more than the inflation-adjusted cost of the Vietnam War ($698 billion), the Iraq war ($597 billion), the Korean War ($454 billion), the initial 42,700 miles of the Interstate highway system ($425 billion), the race to the moon ($237 billion), the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s ($153 billion), the Louisiana Purchase ($217 billion), the Marshall Plan ($115.3 billion) or the Works Project Administration of 1939 ($100 billion).”

Now, obviously the US economy is now far lager—making the stimulus a smaller percentage of GDP. But it is still remarkable just how much money is going to be spent. Let us hope that as little of it as possible goes on the usual mix of pork but with the numbers this high it is going to be hard to impose much restraint on lawmakers.