So . . . massive spending is the way to go?

Consider Japan’s experience:

[German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s] skepticism [about more spending] is warranted not only by her country's history but also by that of other nations. Japan spent more than $2 trillion trying to lift itself out of recession after the bursting of its real estate bubble in the 1990s. But real estate prices and indeed the economy did not pick up until the following decade. By then, government debt amounted to two years' worth of Japan's economic production.

"Angela Merkel: Voice of Reason." By Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Real Clear Politics, 4/1/09.

UPDATE 4/12/09:

In 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. would admit to less influential Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee:

We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot.

In just the last few months, the last two administrations have managed to spend more than $3 trillion of your dollars.

"Stop Spending Our Future!" By Conn Carroll, The Foundry, The Heritage Foundation, 4/10/09 (links omitted).