Over two decades, Japan has spent literally trillions of tax dollars trying to “stimulate” and revive its once highly envied economy.
But for all that effort, it got what has come to be called “The Lost Decade”: “That’s the period when a booming economy that many expected to dominate the world instead ground to a halt, then slipped into a deflationary spiral that continues today,” writes a reporter for Tribune Newspapers.
Despite each attempt by the Japanese government to spur economic growth through “stimulus,” government spending just didn’t do the trick. Government bureaucrats weren’t capable of judging what the market needed. They did not understand that only when individuals make their own decisions about how to spend their money can the free market function efficiently, producing jobs and economic growth.
But instead of shunning Japan’s horrible example, Democrats in the U.S. Congress unwisely approved last year’s $862 billion stimulus in the U.S. And here, too, it has not helped. Joblessness is now 9.8 percent, and the stimulus has added to our catastrophic $13.8 trillion national debt.
We could well be heading for a “Lost Decade” ourselves if we don’t reverse course.
With “stimulus” failing at home and abroad, will Congress learn the lesson that it is free enterprise, not government spending, that produces jobs and growth? We’d like to think so, but if Japan’s example is any indication, don’t count on it: Japan has just approved an additional $61 billion stimulus on top of all the previous stimulus measures that have weakened its economy so much. It’s throwing good money after bad.
Why doesn’t our government learn from, and then avoid, the bad results of meddlesome economic policies here and elsewhere, rather than repeat those policies — to our detriment?