All too good to be true?

While browsing my regular online news sources today, I came across a rather intriguing headline:

U.S. Investing $250 Billion in Banks

Yikes! If you add that to the 700 billion bailout plan that was just approved, lets see… that’s…
well, that’s a ton of money.

The last time I checked, our nation did not have that kind of money to spare, in fact, I recall that our nation was already in quite a deficit as a result of the war in Iraq among other things. With the presidential election just around the corner, debates on taxes, increased funding for education and other things, and social security leave me wondering: how is it all possible? Where will that money come from?

Of course, as this entire economic crisis has constantly been compared to the Great Depression, it is only fitting that we also compare the solutions of these two issues. Interestingly enough, the New Deal also relied on a lot of financial aid from the government. Under the New Deal, the government employed thousands of people to work on large government projects, with the emphasis often primarily on providing jobs and wages rather than creating things the government really needed. That is not to say that these New Deal government projects were not beneficial, but rather, that the idea was mainly to solve the issue of unemployment and bring the nations economy back on track. So I suppose in that instance, further spending of money by the government was successful in solving the economic crisis.

However, it is still hard for me to believe that the government will be able to fund the bailout plan, invest further in American banks, while all the while carrying out the promises that both presidential candidates are making; increasing funding in important areas like renewable energy and education, while at the same time decreasing taxes. During the great depression, New Deal legislation was by far the highest priority in the government, and drastic measures and sacrifices were made in order to steer the economy back on track. However, in this present day situation, it appears as if the government is using money as a simple solution to all problems and the average American thus feels little direct impact of the economic crisis. It’s as if no sacrifices need to be made, an approach that I believe is too good to be true, and one that I find logically impossible. The way I see it, at some point or other, the balance will have to be restored. We can’t keep solving financial issues with money we don’t (as to my knowledge) have, as some point in America’s history, someone will have to pay up, and pay up big. This may not concern the government; after all, most of its members are already pretty far up in their years, but it concerns me. I don’t want to pay the past generation’s debts, I don’t want my children’s taxes to be funding a bailout plan that happened years before they were born.

So when I read the article about the U.S. Treasury investing heavily in U.S. Banks, banks that were on the verge of collapse only days ago, I worry. Perhaps, like the New Deal, this really will solve the economic crisis. Maybe the best thing we, as a nation, can do is invest in ourselves. I know little of economics; perhaps, in the end, this will all balance out. But I worry. Something tells me this is all too good to be true.