Rarely do I offer glad tidings and good news to my readers, but I am glad to say that today is one of those times. We are on the verge of ending our economic downturn. President Bush’s economic stimulus package is just about to take effect.

Of course, you’ve all heard about the economic stimulus package. It has even sent protesters to the streets of Washington, D.C., and even here in Ames. Sadly, however, these closed-minded individuals have mistaken it for a war.

I’ll explain two things. One, war is bad. Two, economic growth is good. But, as a particularly true adage goes: no pain, no gain.

Economic stimulus is a difficult thing, so the fact that Bush’s plan is virtually guaranteed to succeed is truly a proof of brilliance. For those of you who haven’t set foot in an economics classroom or the real world, I’ll break down how the new package works. Unlike the “voodoo economics” packages that are virtually guaranteed to fail, as the elder President Bush cautioned us decades ago, this one involves no tax cuts, no farm subsidies or limitations on credit cards. Rather, it involves one almost ingenious way of eliminating nearly all of the nation’s economic problems — from unemployment to a middling per capita income and even an exploding trade deficit.

The answer to the first two is simple — kill people. The answer to the third — funnel tax dollars into domestic corporations. Thankfully for the economy, but very unfortunate to everyone, is that war inevitably leads to casualties. Wars that are likely to be as protracted as a war advocating total regime change will result in a lot more than the roughly 100 casualties of the first Gulf War. For every death, the unemployment rate goes down, because there’s one more job opening up. The per capita income goes up because there’s one less “capita” to be dividing by. Once you’ve added up the casualties to a substantial total like we’ve seen in major wars, the economy can’t help but improve.

The even nicer thing is that buying our weapons doesn’t even add to our trade deficit. Most of the major weapons manufacturers are located in the United States, so we don’t even have to spend our money elsewhere. It’s a nice way of generating support for American business without resorting to tactics like corporate welfare that may get people booted out of office. By focusing our money on purchasing arms, that’s less money that can be sent abroad and more money that stays right in our communities, so far as you consider Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman or Boeing your community. Motivated by war, they’ll reach new heights of productivity, and we’ll reach a higher GDP than ever, to be split among fewer people with every friendly-fire incident or accidental plane crash. Even if the Iraqis didn’t fight back, accidents like these ensure at least minute economic growth.

So economic upturns are almost inevitable. We have a reduced trade deficit, reduced unemployment, and everybody who’s left in the country will have that much money. Too bad none of the economic indicators will result in any meaningful change for anyone but the richest Americans. It’s too bad that they aren’t the ones who will see the downside of the economic upturn. Worst of all, it’s too bad that there is no better reason than economics to pick a fight with a disgusting leader that we’ve tolerated through far worse offenses.

Even if you insist on considering it a war, this war isn’t about weapons of mass destruction. If such things were our concern, we would either wait until the weapons inspections were completed or put all our military coercive pressure on North Korea. It’s not about dictators, because frankly, dictators are all over the place, including good old North Korea. If we hated dictators, it would have been over a long time ago for Saddam in Iraq, because the United States would have gladly let Iran roll over Saddam and his family business of tyranny. Even more certainly, it’s not about getting back at “the guy who tried to kill my dad,” as President Bush put it. Mere revenge doesn’t even show up on the radar for war, since then the first target for the Bush family would be the nation of Japan, who derided the older and wiser Bush endlessly for his vomiting at a Japanese state dinner.

The economic problems of this country are certainly not the fault of President Bush, at least not this one. Because of the gradual nature of economics, any governmental packages that are affecting the economy are likely to date back to the Clinton administration. Of course, the business cycle has to take the blame for our downturn now after an obscene period of economic growth.

Instead, we’re going to war. Not just any war. This war is about one thing — buying American.

Tim Kearns is a senior in political science from Bellevue, Neb.