President elect Obama, his congressional allies and his Chicago advisors are preparing to add $600 billion to $1.0 trillion to federal spending in 2009-2010 to implement his campaign promises and counter what is claimed to be the worst recession in many decades. But the recession may not be as bad as feared. And it may be shortsighted to fight a recession that is needed to rid the economy of spending habits financed by loans to people clearly unable or unwilling to repay them. Contractors and their suppliers may be expecting more public works and housing subsidies than they will get as the scare predictions about economic conditions prove to be exaggerated because they were based on the depressed summer consumer spending after the first economic stimulus checks had advanced some summer spending into the spring.

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