While the government can certainly raise $700 billion in the debt market, the money to buy that debt has to come from somewhere. That somewhere will very likely be cash that investors could otherwise have used to finance productive, private-sector companies looking to help grow the economy. As a result, borrowing costs for companies other than the politically privileged recipients of the bailout cash will likely rise as they have to pay more interest to attract investors. That doesn’t exactly spur economic growth.