Further, cutting some "ineffective" programs ignores the broader question of whether programs represent just and legitimate uses of government power. We can make farm subsidies more "effective," for example, but that does not make it ethical to transfer $20 billion each year from hard-working taxpayers to often high-income farm businesses.

I'd like to see the Obama administration attack Washington's overspending problem in a more dramatic and fundamental way.

President Obama said some encouraging words about federal spending in his first major speech as president, but the budget released by his administration today reveals a substantial disconnect between his rhetoric and his policy.

Americans have a fundamental choice to make in coming months: Do they want President Obama and Congress to impose huge increases in the size of government, perhaps as dramatic as occurred in the 1930s and 1960s?

Apart from defense, federal spending has hovered around 16.5 percent of the economy since 1980, through both Democratic and Republican administrations. But under President Obama, nondefense spending is soaring to 23 percent of the economy this year and will remain at historic high levels in the future.

Even after current stimulus spending is supposed to end, nondefense spending is expected to be more than 19 percent of the economy -- or 25 percent more than the size of government during the later Clinton years.

Americans need to decide whether they want the European-sized government that President Obama is promising -- with all its damaging effects on individual freedom and economic growth -- or whether they want to return to the greater prosperity of the smaller-government Clinton years.

On economics, the president made claims such as "I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis." Yet how can he have "complete confidence" when the economics profession is divided on the stimulus issue, and when we have seen policymakers and top economists making continual mistakes with their policies and predictions over the last year?

On economists, the president opined "although there are some politicians who are arguing that we don't need a stimulus, there are very few economists who are making that argument." Mr. President, please look at the Cato list of more than 300 university economists who oppose a big stimulus spending bill. Please have your advisers call these experts to get an independent outside-the-beltway view.

Finally, the president bought into the "Government as Santa Claus" theory with his statement that "the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life." In reality, the federal government is broke. It has no "resources" left, and will run a $1 trillion deficit this year even without a stimulus. Besides, any resources that the government spends must be vacuumed out of the private economy through borrowing and taxes, which is particularly damaging when the private economy is already suffering from recession.

The Congressional Budget Office released an update to its budget projections, and the figures show that the federal deficit for fiscal 2009 will be $1.2 trillion. That deficit represents 8.3 percent of GDP, the highest share of the economy since World War II. Thus, a burden the size of 8 percent of all income earned in theUnited States this year is being thrust onto tomorrow's taxpayers.

Here are some other observations on the data:

• If Congress passes a so-called stimulus package in coming weeks of say $800 billion, the 2009 deficit will top $2 trillion. Even the biggest critics of Washington's spendthrift ways never thought they would see a number like that.
• The CBO shows federal spending in 2009 will be about $3.54 trillion. This number includes the spending effect of TARP and the federal takeover of Fannie and Freddie. But let's consider those to be extraordinary items and take them out for a minute. And let's add in $24 billion more for Iraq this year, as CBO indicates. The result is that — even aside from the financial bailouts — federal spending would be about $3.165 trillion this year. That figure is up 6.3 percent over 2008, and up 70 percent over 2001, Bush's first year in office.
• The CBO puts the deficit in fiscal year 2010 at $703 billion. But that low-balls Iraq costs again, and doesn't include extension of the AMT and other minor expiring tax provisions. Add those in, and the deficit in 2010 will be at least $829 billion.

Keynesian economists believe that government budget deficits "stimulate" the economy during a recession. But we've got $1.2 trillion this year and $800 billion next year of deficit "stimulus" without any special "stimulus" package.

Isn't that enough? If I get up in the morning and drink five cups of coffee and that doesn't stimulate me, I don't go and drink another five. I'd recognize my addiction problem and start reforming my bad habits. Federal policymakers should do the same.

Chris Edwards appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal recently to discuss the "stimulus package" proposed by President-elect Obama.