Santa Claus

Like children rushing from bed at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning in a frenzy of anticipation about what awaits them under the tree, Nevada politicians could barely contain their glee over the state's haul in the federal "stimulus" package.

Out of the $790 billion spending monstrosity, Nevada will get about $1.5 billion, according to accounts.

Yippee! Free money, everybody! Santa didn't forget the boys and girls of the Silver State!

"The federal recovery bill will not solve our budget crisis, but it will help us rebuild our infrastructure and create thousands of new jobs," gushed Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, a Las Vegas Democrat.

All these new jobs -- as many as 34,000, we're assured -- will "go to Nevadans who are now unemployed or underemployed, and we will report back how many jobs are created with this money," trumpeted Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas.

So where will all these new jobs be created? Good question.

One third of Nevada's stimulus money will go to Medicaid and other social service programs -- in other words, welfare. Another third will go to vague, education-related programs, with little explanation on how that will bolster employment, unless the plan is for school districts to hire lots more people during a time of stagnant enrollment. And if that is indeed the plan, it's sheer lunacy, given that this is one-time funding.

Yes, some of the money will go to bridge and highway repairs, which should result in more union hiring in related trades. But that amounts to only about 15 percent of the funds Nevada is slated to receive.

Investor's Business Daily points out that direct small-business tax relief amounts to only about one-third of 1 percent of the total bill, "yet small businesses do most of the hiring in this country."

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed and in an interview with the Atlantic magazine, Harvard economist Robert Barro called the stimulus package "probably the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s."

But for Nevada politicians, the federal goodies provide cover and help them again deflect potentially difficult budget decisions that they have neglected for years.

Creating jobs? This is a porkfest designed to feed every left-wing special interest group under the sun and to expand the U.S. government's influence over the private ecomony to unprecedented levels.

We'd of been better off with a lump of coal in our stocking. Nothing in life, after all, is free.