We are living in historic and unprecedented times, indeed.President-elect Barack Obama will be inaugurated Tuesday as the 44th President of the United States.The first item on his agenda: rebuild our economy and create millions of new jobs.To achieve this, the president-elect has asked Congress to swiftly enact his proposed economic stimulus.The plan, which could potentially spiral in excess of $1 trillion, has incited ample interest from global markets, as well as massive speculation from economists and investors hoping to see a placation of the volatile market.  But some experts  — like economist Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital Inc. and economic advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul  — assert the plan might just pour kerosene on the fire rather than smolder it.Schiff, a prescient voice on the downfall of municipal and global markets, has warned of this impending credit crisis for years, citing America’s phony wealth and fiscal irresponsibility as main sources of our current crisis.In a recent conversation with RT, Schiff asserted the U.S. credit crisis was a byproduct of excess consumption and impetuous spending combined with minimal savings and production.This combination, he contends, could prove lethal.Schiff explained, “While the [housing bubble] was inflating, we were recklessly borrowing and spending money.” The real estate bubble burst, he suggested, exposed the bogus wealth America has accumulated.”Everything the government has done is going to perpetuate our problem. Government cannot create wealth or jobs. Government has no wealth. All government can do is redistribute wealth the private sector creates. “If the government is going to usurp resources away from private sector, it’s going to destroy real employment opportunities,” Schiff said.On the other hand, there are proponents of Obama’s logic, like New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, that have their own drawbacks about the plan, citing that the $775 billion Obama has promised would likely fall short of our actual need.Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, another adherent to the package, gave a similar assessment in a statement issued Tuesday.In that regard, it isn’t so much a bailout — it’s plugging gum into a hole in the dam and seeing another hole burst five seconds later. It’s like a heroin addict trying to remedy his addiction by injecting himself with more heroin. It’s offering a temporal solution to a problem while ignoring a more long-term solution.And, according to Schiff, that simply isn’t the way to ameliorate this crisis.The way to fix it is by letting the recession run its course so the market can correct itself, not by filling our economic gas tank with Kool-Aid and hoping that, somehow, the engine of our economy will keep running.Realism and optimism don’t always dovetail, unfortunately. Sometimes reality has a much more pessimistic veneer.But cynicism doesn’t win elections; and it certainly doesn’t promote hope and expectancy.President-elect Obama’s campaign was largely touted on the self-gratifying mantra of “change.” Yet taking a closer look at his economic and foreign policy, one would be remiss to find any stark differences between his plans and the failed policy of previous administrations.The same flawed logic applies. Nowhere does it show there will be any sort of real plug pulled on prodigal spending, and that’s the tragedy of the whole idea.Reality, though, has a curious way of shaking the blinders off people’s eyes. Perhaps once we can accept this crisis for what it is, we can start searching for pragmatic solutions rather than promoting the same failed diplomacy we’ve advanced for years.We shouldn’t be looking to rebuild; we should be looking to resurrect the free market fundamentals our economy once stood on. “Rebuilding” implies we should prop it up exactly the way it was rather than addressing the actual problems and creating practical, long-term solutions.But this isn’t practical — this is politics. And, practically speaking, most politicians have yet to accept that governmental expansion is detrimental to market economics.You can’t fix capitalism by enacting socialistic policy — you fix it by advancing free-market philosophies and allowing the market to run its course.Obama’s stimulus plan, then, isn’t the solution we need; it’s only an extension of the problems initiated during the Bush administration.It’s a rash attempt to fix a growing problem — a filler intended to plug our financial bleeding.Or, simply stated, it’s an economic tampon.- – – -Contact Scott Burns at [email protected]