"We won the election. We wrote the bill." -House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, January, 2008, regarding the House of Representatives version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."
-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, November, 2008.
You hear that whirring noise sounding something like a high-speed drill coming out of Washington? That's Washington firing up the printing presses, getting ready to print up as much money as they can as fast as they can under the pretext of 'Economic Stimulus'. They'll print up so much money so fast, your cash won't be worth the paper its printed on.
In truth, Pelosi, Emanuel, et al can only claim about 12 CENTS out of every dollar in the roughly $825 BILLION 'Economic Stimulus Package' would actually go to create jobs and stimulate the economy- anything more, and their noses would grow so fast it would make Pinocchio blush.
What's in the 647-page bill anyway? Some of the highlights:
$40 billion for arguably worthwhile priorities like broadband and electrical grid development, airports, and clean water projects.
$30 billion for fixing bridges and other highway projects- less than 5% of the total cost. This is what President Obama calls "dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy."? This after the bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007, after which a report was released in 2007 showing 75,621 bridges were also given the same 'structurally deficient' label as the I-35W bridge, and promises were made to get the infrastructure improved. Well, if they were to concentrate on the bridges and nothing but the bridges, that would amount to about $396,715.00 per bridge... what will that really get you? And that does not even cover any new projects, expansion, nothing. I don't know about you, but I think I'm going to start just avoiding bridges altogether.
$20 billion for business tax cuts.
$2.4 billion for carbon-capture 'demonstration projects' (huh?), a.k.a. carbon sequestration, a.k.a. junk science that does not do anything to change behavior or reduce our use of fossil fuels.
$2 Billion in child-care subsidies.
Amtrak gets $1 Billion; I mean, hey, who cares if they haven't turned a profit in 40 years?
And additional $650 million for even more digital TV conversion coupons.
$50 Million for the National Endowment for the Arts.
By the Wall Street Journal's estimates, only about $90 billion of the total- just over ten percent- could be considered something that would contribute to growth.
And the best part- the President's new budget director, Peter Orszag, told Congress a year ago that the public works projects can't start quickly enough to provide a timely stimulus to the economy.
What else is in here?
$83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax.
$81 billion for Medicaid.
$66 billion or education- with verbiage to prevent the funds from being used to provide financial assistance to students to attend private schools... yeah, because we wouldn't want any of that money going to non-union employees, now would we?
$36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits.
$20 billion for food stamps.
$8 Billion for renewable energy funding... I guess its a start, but considering its less than half of the money we sent overseas for oil in December 2008 alone, it seems kind of an empty gesture to me.
$7 Billion to modernize Federal buildings and facilities.
$6 billion to mass transit. Considering how entrenched unions are in mass transit, and how much the Democratic Party courts the unions, does this smell like buying votes to anybody else?
$600 million for the Federal Government to buy new cars.
Where is the job creation in all of this?
And come next budget year, how much of this is going to be figured into the baseline? Or do you actually believe that Congress will actually cut spending on all of these programs next year?
The Speaker said it best- "We [The Democratic Party] won the election. We wrote the bill." Who cares what you want or need, or even what's best for the American people as a whole; the Democratic Party has to look out for number one- the Party itself. Change indeed. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The Party and the special interests get everything they want the way they want, and who's left holding the bill? Look in the mirror.
http://online.wsj.com/wsjgate?subURI=%2Farticle%2FSB123310466514522309-email.html&nonsubURI=%2Farticle_email%2FSB123310466514522309-lMyQjAxMDI5MzIzODEyMDg0Wj.html
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