The economic stimulus bill is being pushed as a way of creating jobs and putting people to work.  Besides all the wasteful spending in the bill, some of the benefits may actually be a disincentive to work.  This excerpt from today's Providence Journal makes an excellent point:


But William Poole, a onetime Brown economist and member of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, warned that some kinds of spending in the bill may actually clash with the goal of putting Americans to work.

A new program to extend Medicaid to the unemployed at all income levels might have the perverse incentive of prompting people to pass up job opportunities that do not carry health insurance, Poole said.

Such programs could thus contribute to what he described as a substantial popular resentment of spending that does not clearly put people back in the work force, Poole said, echoing one line of attack on the bill last week by Republicans — who did not provide a single vote for the House stimulus package.