The next president and the new Congress are getting ready to launch the largest economic stimulus package of all time, while being nervous about the resulting debt burden. After all, the reason we’re in this mess is because the US, and in fact most modern nations, have been piling up the debt for years. Understanding the risk of more, there is a sudden commitment to make this all as efficient as possible. President-elect Obama has said that a close look at Social Security and Medicare would be a “central part” of his efforts to contain federal spending. He has named Nancy Killefer to the new office of White House Chief Performance Officer, her job is to “scour this budget, line by line, eliminating what we don’t need, or what doesn’t work, and improving the things that do.”.

Hello? What difference is that going to make? The point at this moment is to get money back into circulation as quickly as possible, and it makes no difference at all whether that results from careful intentional spending or money falling through the cracks. In fact, the fastest thing they could do is drive their limousines down Skid Row and occasionally toss handfuls of C-notes out the windows. The homeless that snatch up those bills are going to spend them instantly. And they’re not going to spend their money on fancy Scotch or French wines, they’ll be going for the all-American Mogen David 20/20.

One thing that might make sense is to look at which areas of the country are most in need of the boost, and make sure that there is plenty of government spending wasted in them. If the community is broke, residents aren’t going to stuff the federal booty in a mattress.

There are only two places where the waste should be avoided. The first is imports. It doesn’t do this country much good to hand a bunch of cash to those who are going to buy new BMWs or Rolexes with it. The second is banks. The last thing we can afford to do is to hand over billions of dollars to banks who are just going to sit on it. Uh, wait. Isn’t that what the outgoing administration spent the first third of a trillion bucks on?

If I were king, I’d understand that there was a time for prudence, and a time for profligacy, and I’d dispatch with the Puritanical concept of prudent prodigality that seems to be the current rage.