As an Obama-era Gordon Gekko might put it to shocking effect: “Government spending is good.”
The enormous “government handout” that is the stimulus package is encouraging growth of emerging industries and doing so partly by bringing major private-sector investors on board. The development puts the lie to the simple dichotomy drawn in the last few decades between the market and the government and to pretend incompatibility of the two. Unabashed taxing and spending is looking pretty good for business — and not just the businesses in need of bailout. The stimulus is stimulating major U.S. companies to actually make things and build industries that will pay dividends well into the future.