Politics & Power Quote by Mark Kirk

Kirk’s line is less an economic argument than a political act of framing: a preemptive strike that turns “government action” into “money taken,” and “public spending” into “poor performance.” The syntax does a lot of work. “Taking more money out of the private economy” casts taxation or deficit spending as a raid on a naturally productive ecosystem, with the private sector positioned as the default engine of competence. “Having the government perform” slyly anthropomorphizes the state into a bad contractor, one that has already failed the audition.

The key subtext sits in “as it has poorly done with the stimulus.” He doesn’t litigate what counts as success (jobs saved vs. jobs created, short-term stabilization vs. long-term growth); he declares a verdict. That’s strategic because the 2009 stimulus was, and remains, a Rorschach test: supporters cite avoided collapse and macro stabilization; critics point to persistent unemployment and visible “shovel-ready” delays. Kirk’s sentence is calibrated for that environment, where public frustration with slow recovery could be converted into a general suspicion of state capacity.

The intent is to foreclose the idea that the right response to a weak economy is a bigger public role. By bundling “more money” with “poorly done,” he collapses a complex policy debate into a moral narrative: the private economy is being drained to feed an inept government. It’s also a hedge: even if stimulus had mixed results, the phrasing makes “mixed” read as “failed,” keeping the argument portable across budget fights, tax debates, and election cycles.