The Economy Will Improve If We All Spend More Time Filling Out Forms

 

... which is the essence of the concept behind stimulus packages.
Banks are now regulated to the point of being in straightjackets. Dittos for corporate financial operations. And the auto industry. And the medical industry. There are mountains of regulations dealing with each*.
They're pikers and need to stop complaining.
Government employees operate under more regulations than any of them. If you don't believe me, stop by any government agency and check out their contracts department. That's where the money gets distributed to businesses to do work. That's where stimulus meets employment.
Welcome to the Land of Inertia. Spend a little time clicking around this site, just for fun. Take a look at how much work is entailed in getting, say, a $30,000 contract out the door to buy some IT services. Now consider how much work it would be if you owned your own business. You'd just go out and buy the thing, right? Oh, you'd shop around a bit and ask colleagues for recommendations, but in the end, you'd write a check and the job would get done.
Increased government intervention means, at the micro level, more people will spend more time following the rules like the ones laid out in the Department of Interior site linked above. That time is completely unproductive. In short, government intervention reduces the amount of productive labor being done in the economy. If you're following "The procedures set forth in the Federal Supply Schedule for Governmentwide Commercial Credit Card Services, Treasury Financial Manual, TFM 4-4500, and "U.S. Department of Interior Handbook for Utilization of Government Wide Commercial Credit Card" issued by PAM contain guidance on the utilization of Governmentwide purchase card services," you're not laying tile, repairing bicycles or baking bread.
The progressive faith in government is built entirely on a foundation of ignorance. It sounds like a good idea to intervene, but in real life it fails because the government wastes people's time. Wasted time reduces economic output. It's as simple as that.
* - Before you spaz out and cry that they're not regulated, you need to distinguish between regulations on the books and regulations that are enforced. If some of them go off the reservation from time to time, it's a good bet that they've violated current regulations, but there are so many current regulations that it's impossible to enforce them all. Enforcing regulations becomes like pushing a rope.

http://ktcatspost.blogspot.com/2011/08/economy-will-improve-if-we-all-spend.html