A couple of decades back, “new” math was all the rage in certain parts of the educational establishment. In “new” math, students were praised for their work irrespective of whether that work produced a correct answer. In short, the one thing that “new” math ensured was that students didn’t learn math.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an editorial that you really should read about the “son of stimulus” that Democrats are poised to pass.

But I wanted to highlight this bit of “new” economics as proposed by “Baghdad” Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).

The $47 billion to extend unemployment insurance to nearly two full years will bring the total spent on this program to $137 billion during this recession—five times more than in either of the prior two recessions. That's nearly as much as the federal corporate income raised in 2009.

The sages in Congress continue to claim that these payments for not working will lead to more work. Representative Jim McDermott recently declared on the House floor that jobless payments are "one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus" because "every unemployment dollar spent returns $1.64 of economic benefits." So let's lay off everybody, pay them for not working, and watch the economy really boom. Where do they teach this stuff?

I understand why this bit of idiocy from McDermott didn’t get bigger play; there isn’t enough room in today’s trimmed-down newspapers to cover every stupid statement made by a politician.