Sixty One: Lincoln On The Stimulus Act

"The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves - in their separate, and individual capacities.

In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere."

The foregoing was written by Abraham Lincoln sometime around late September of 1854.

Applying Lincoln's standard of legitimate governance, I wonder how much of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, signed into law by BO today, would measure up.