A spending bill was passed by the House of Representatives Dec. 16, and soon, it will go before the Senate. The bill is dubbed the Jobs for Main Street Act, and it’s here to tell you not to worry–the federal government will make it all better!

To learn about this bill, let’s journey to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s propaganda page.

Someone from her staff writes, “On December 16th, the House passed the Jobs for Main Street Act to create or save jobs here at home with targeted investments ($75 billion) for highways and transit, school renovation, hiring teachers, police, and firefighters, small business, job training and affordable housing – key drivers of economic growth that have the most bang for the buck. These investments are fully paid for by redirecting TARP funds from Wall Street to Main Street.”

So this would be paid for with money originally intended for bailouts? Nevermind that the bailouts used money we didn’t have in the first place.

But it’s okay, as long as you follow the formula that Wall Street = bad, and Main Street = good. Although…Aren’t both “streets” located in America and function as parts of the American economy with American citizens?

The name of this legislation assumes we’re stupid. I would hope that even a well-intentioned supporter of the bill would acknowledge that the title “Jobs for Main Street Act” sounds at least propaganda-ish, if not altogether condescending. Not that this is a new phenomenon, of course. The same could be said of the name “Patriot Act.”

This “Main Street” legislation would essentially be a mini-stimulus. Part One of the bill is “stabilizing jobs through infrastructure investments.”

The press release reads, “The bill redirects $48.3 billion from Wall Street to help put people to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing public buildings, and cleaning our air and water …”

Part Two is “stabilizing public service jobs.”

And it reads, “The bill redirects $26.7 billion from Wall Street to stabilize public service jobs such as teachers, firefighters, and police officers …”

Part Three is “continuing emergency funding: emergency relief for families hurt by the economy.”

And it reads, “High unemployment and rising costs have outpaced Americans’ paychecks. The bill continues emergency help to working families to make ends meet at a cost of $79 billion …”

Each section lists more specific uses of the funds. And if you’re paying attention, you’ll note that only the first two categories use the “Wall Street” money. That third category is simply an extra $79 billion worth of spending (and it’s sad how small that number looks these days.) And no word on what happens to these new jobs when this funding runs out, or even how much each job costs.

What this all is, is a central planning bill. Or a depend-on-the-feds bill. Or possibly even a “You will bow down before me, Jor-El! You, and one day, your heirs!” bill, to quote the beginning of Superman the Movie.

To pick out an example at random: “Airport Improvement Grants: $500 million for airport improvement projects that will support putting people to work to improve safety and reduce congestion at our nation’s airports. An estimated $49.7 billion is needed between 2009 and 2013 to fully fund eligible airport infrastructure projects.”

Not a bad goal, but on what path does this put us?

Take the Chicago Airport System, for example. The City of Chicago owns and operates O’Hare and Midway International. In essence, it’s Chicago’s business, and the federal government is bailing it out. What would be the effect on the self-sufficiency of Chicago if it learns to depend on the federal government to help solve its airport problems? (Assuming, for the sake of discussion, it hasn’t already.) Why would the city even bother properly maintaining the airport when it knows it can just wait for “free” federal money when things get rough?

Once that damage is done, it’s hard to undo. Actually, the country already learned to depend on the federal government during the Great Depression, and today, Congress insists on giving us The New Deal 2009-10: Revenge of the Brain Trust.

Look at this one: “Summer Youth Employment: $500 million for a summer employment program for youth. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the unemployment rate for teenagers (age 16 to 19) reached 26.7% in November 2009 – the highest level recorded since BLS began collecting data. These funds will support summer youth employment for approximately 250,000 disadvantaged youth.”

Reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation Corps, isn’t it? Not identical, but it’s a similar principle: Let’s use tax dollars to keep the youth from staying idle.

However…These tax dollars are taken from businesses and individuals who could have employed these youths or developed summer enrichment programs for them, but apparently, we’re supposed to stop thinking once we hear, “It’s for the children!” And just accept it, because we want to feel like we’re good people.

Not only are politicians of both parties skilled at bribing us with our own money, but they’ve mastered the ability to make us feel good about ourselves as they do so.

Gradually over decades, we’ve been learning to allow the federal government to replace our charity, our economic independence, and even our willingness to work out our own local problems.

With the consent of the taxpayers, it’s fine for the state and local governments to experiment along those lines and see how it works out on that smaller scale. Local government can’t hide from its constituents nearly as easily as the federal government.

The further you remove the planners from the populace, the more difficult it becomes to hold them accountable. And we wind up with gigantic debt and unsustainable entitlement programs. We wind up being told that because the healthcare system has serious flaws, the government is only the means to fix it. We wind up with scams like dangerous man-made global warming to justify those central planners acquiring even more power.

It’ll take more than tax cuts to free us from this bind.

Politicians get caught up bickering about various public policy issues without acknowledging that maybe the problem is the way in which they craft public policy.

Before we continue debating healthcare and the environment and various spending bills, perhaps we should start with a debate on what responsibilities should fall to the federal government, which should fall to the state governments and the local governments, and what we as private citizens are responsible for managing on our own with no expectation for governmental involvement. And once we reach a compromise, we should hold firm to those boundaries for a time and review them periodically.

That would be a difficult and lengthy debate to have, but somehow, in some civil way, Congress could use a reminder that there are limits to its power. After all, the concept of a limited government was one of America’s founding principles. There’s room for debate on precisely how limited, but we’ve got to set limits somewhere.

A national debt in the trillions–plus continued spending–suggests Congress feels otherwise.

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