Will The Stimulus Create Jobs? Maybe. Will Americans get those jobs? Not Necessarily.

Think that just because you are a hard-working, tax-paying American Citizen who's just down on your luck, and needs a job, and if only Obama's Stimulus package would get signed into law, you could once again be gainfully employed, and be able to put bread on the table for you and your family?

Think again.

There’s been a lot of discussion from everywhere (me included) about all of the pork being stuffed into President Barack Obama's $838 Bn spending bill, it's what is being cut out that's receiving too little attention. And once a majority of ‘We The People’ realize it, ‘We’ won’t be happy. Hopefully ‘We’ will be pissed off enough to tell our ‘Representative Government’ exactly what ‘We’ think of this bill. Hopefully, it won’t be too late at that point.

What's been removed is a requirement for any businesses receiving federal stimulus cash to use an easy computer program called E-Verify to make sure that the jobs they generate go to American citizens or documented foreign workers, not illegal immigrants. Democrats in the House voted for the E-Verify component. But when the bill reached the Senate, Democrats there dropped it.

E-Verify, offered free to all employers since 2004 as a way to combat illegal Immigration, allows employers to determine the legal work status of potential employees by searching their names and Social Security numbers along with other databases.

It's cheap to operate, and more than 96 percent of job applicants are cleared by the program within minutes. This makes it almost impossible for employers to skirt the system and hire cheap, illegal labor.

Of all the garbage in the bill, there's been little if any discussion about E-Verify.
Being politicians, they can't help but accuse the other side of not caring about the American worker.

But the American Worker is who the E-Verify provision was supposed to protect. Not the construction boss or the slaughterhouse manager who wants to pay as little as possible for labor.

"It's another example of why people distrust Congress," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who had pushed for an amendment to the stimulus package mandating that E-Verify be used to certify job applicants.

John Kass spoke with Senator Sessions over the phone Tuesday minutes after the Senate narrowly passed its version of the stimulus package, 61-37. He asked Sessions how Americans will react, once they figure it out.

"I think the American people will be furious when they find out about this. The Congress tells them one thing, and then in the dead of night, the Senate maneuvers around and does another," Sessions said. "Those who know are already not happy about it. They see this as one more duplicitous act."

"They get to tell their constituents, 'See, I voted for it.' But they never really wanted it in the first place," Sessions said.

"It [E-Verify] should be the law of the land. The reason it's not tells you more about American politics—and the Democrats' courtship of Latino voters—than any speech about hope.

This isn't about denying legal immigrants work, no matter where they come from. It's about ensuring that the federal system is legit, not full of holes ripe for corruption and big-city political patronage.

Sessions said he'll keep pushing to include the E-Verify provision in the final bill that is sent to the president. And other politicians will no doubt fight for what they deem important in the bill, whether it's that $400 million to prevent sexually transmitted diseases or that $246 million tax break for Hollywood producers.

Whether safe sex and Hollywood help stimulate the economy is something I'll leave to politicians.

But what about American workers and American taxpayers?

---------------

Meanwhile, Obama campaigns for the bill, warning that without his stimulus package, we'll suffer economic catastrophe. Whatever happened to choosing hope over fear?
"I can tell you that failure to act, doing nothing, is not an option. You didn't send me to Washington to do nothing. So, we had a good debate. That's part of what democracy is about. But the time for talk is over," the president told a highly stimulated crowd Tuesday in Ft. Myers, Fla.

Translation: Debate? What debate? Let's spend it now, and we'll worry about the details later.

With credit to John Kass, as he said it better than I could.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-11-feb11,0,657719.column

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Must Be Stopped

Wow.  Just wow.  There are so many factoids out there about this bill, its just staggering.  How many ways, how many statistics does everyone have to see before it hits home what an exceedingly bad idea this bill- the biggest spending bill in history- really is.

The bill is 1,588 pages- that's more than three full reams of paper!  And Obama does not want to give people time to read the bill.  "The time for talk is over.  The time for action is now.", he says.  Why?  Because the Senate has been debating the bill for FOUR WHOLE DAYS.  And in yet another show of Obama's 'bipartisanship' and efforts to 'reach across the aisle', he refers to Republicans who want to carefully review this whopper spending bill as 'obstructionists'.  Way to extend the hand of friendship there, chief.

Okay, some interesting factoids here:

If you spent $1,000,000.00 a day, each and every day, since the birth of Jesus, you would still have 70 years to go to equal the amount of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

If you stacked enough $1,000.00 bills to equal the amount of the spending bill, the stack would be over 67 miles high.

Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the war in Iraq has cost us around $631,569,000.00 over the last six years.  With the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Obama will have spent 25% more 

in his first month in office than Bush spent in the 5+ years since the beginning of the Iraq war.

If you divide the amount of the bill by the number of jobs its estimated to create, they 

are spending $150,000.00 for each job created.

Some of the line items ('pork') in the bill:

25 million to create ATV trails
650 million to buy cars for federal employees
75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI
248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Securities headquarters
400 million to the CDC to prevent STD’s
412 million for CDC property and buildings
820 Million to prevent pandemic influenza
6 billion for Special Education
???? National Institute of Health 
1 billion for the 2010 census

246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers
Giving $100 a month to people who lost their jobs in this recession
34 million to the commerce department
Only 21 Billion dollars goes to small business. That’s only 3% of the bill..
125 million for the DC sewer system
16 billion dollars to repair schools – the local city system should take care of that… not federal government
5.5 million for transportation
2.25 million neighbor stimulation program
5 million to upgrade local firestations – the federal government shouldn’t be involved in that
9 billion in telecommunication
Rebuilding and developing Golf courses, Dog parks, Parking garages, Museums, Skateboard park, etc.
8.4 million for polar bear exhibits
100,000 to create a lung cop guard in sulfur creek
500,000 sunset view dog park
Several million for Golf courses, some in Treport LA, MN, MA, St. Louis, MO, Nebraska, Kuai,  HI
27 million dollar Sanitation truck wash in Bridgeport, CT..

This bill passed the House 244-188, without a single Republican vote in favor. As a matter of 

fact, in the only real show of bipartisanship shown throughout this whole order was the 11 

Democrats that broke ranks and voted with the Republicans and voted against the bill.

The more time this bill sits in Congress, the more We, The People are finding out about it, the more we are not liking what we are hearing.

Have some time on your hands?  Maybe a wicked case of insomnia?  You can read the bill in all its legalese glory here: http://readthestimulus.org/hr1_text.pdf

There's still time- email and call the Republican Senators who may waver and give the Senate the to votes it needs to pass this unconscionable piece of legislation.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)

Phone: Collins (202) 224-2523
Fax: Fax: (202) 224-2693
Website
413 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME)

Phone: (202) 224-5344
Toll Free: (800) 432-1599
Fax: (202) 224-1946
Website
154 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA)

Phone: (202) 224-4254
Fax: 202-228-1229
Website
711 Hart Building
Washington , DC 20510

Guantanamo Bay Closed... Now What?

Two days after Barack Obama's inauguration, he signed an executive order closing the terror detention facility at  Guantanamo Bay, effective within twelve months.  Many, including Democrats and foreign government officials, applauded the decision.  But when asked question- where will the 250 or so detainees currently being held go once the detention facility closes?- the same people who cheered the closing offered no answer.

Some Republicans, rather tongue-in-cheekly (at least I hope so), suggested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a vocal critic of GITMO, reopen Alcatraz in her home state and prep it for the detainees.  This partisan bickering does not solve any problems, but the Republicans did raise the question none of the Democrats wanted raised in public.

Speaker Pelosi shrugged off the Republicans' suggestion, but neither the speaker, nor any other Democrat offer up any alternatives.  And why would they?  In a show of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) literally on a national scale, not a single one of the 535 members of Congress offered up their states or congressional districts, not even those with active prisons.  And why would they?

Any city or state that opens its facilities to these detainees will make themselves a potential future target.  And let's not forget that, while there may be some innocent detainees, others, while maybe not directly guilty in the execution of a terror attack, may be complicit in either the planning or execution of past and/or future terror attacks.  And the thing sought after by many of the guilty, is the martyr's death, not only for the rewards they believe they will receive in heaven, but also because of the outrage, the indignation, the hate for America that their 'sacrifice' would, with any luck, raise in others in their fraternity.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and four of his co-defendants tried to enter a guilty plea on December 8, 2008- why? Are we o believe they had a change of conscience, and now wish to atone for their sins?  Please.  If you believe that, then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.  Cheap.  Make me an offer.

No, the defendants entered their guilty plea after the election of the new U.S. President, but before the inauguration.  Since the new President-Elect had already telegraphed his intentions, they schemed and entered their plea, not because they believed they were guilty, but because they were hoping to be put to death by the evil United States Government.  Why?  To try to foment outrage with other Al-Quaeda members, in the hopes of spurring them into action, to get cracking on the next wave of terrorist attacks against our country and countrymen.  

And let's face it- prison isn't exactly a safe place to be- "accidents" happen, what with all of the gangs in prison, and guards, being only human, may not actively participate in harming the detainees, but they may not do absolutely everything in their power to prevent it.

  

Remember Jeffrey Dahmer?  Inmates have their own scale of wrong, and their own punishments.  I have no doubt that a remorseless schemer like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could (and would) say the wrong thing to the wrong people, and get himself shanked.  Even in a Supermax security prison, like Colorado's Florence Federal Supermax Penitentiary.  For the record, there was a riot at the facility as recently as April 2008, where 200 out of the approximately 500 inmates got out of control.  Its not a matter of if it will happen again, its when.  Don't think so?  Toss 200 foreign terror suspects into the mix, and you might as well throw gasoline onto a smoldering fire and expect it to not burst into flames.  Hell, if Vegas were to put an over/under on how long it'd take, I'd be tempted to put some money on it.

So, Mr. President, if we actually want to keep these detainees alive, and none of your fellow politicians is volunteering to house these detainees for fear of turning their cities and/or states into targets for potential future terrorist attacks, where are you going to ship these 250 or so detainees?

[crickets]

Well, Mr. President, perhaps you should've thought about that before you announced GITMO's closing as publicly as you did, eh?  Oh, I forgot, getting your hands dirty with little things like details isn't your thing.  You are more about the abstracts- 'hope' and 'change'- and the grand gestures.  You don't have time for little things like 'details'.

The Truth About 'Clean Coal' and 'Carbon Sequestration'

Yesterday's post touched on something, and I want to revisit that and go into a little more depth, so please allow me this small indulgence today to talk about some of the junk science being tossed around these days by your representative government.

One of the line items of the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects, also known as 'Carbon Sequestration'. To paraphrase the late great George Carlin, the more syllables, the less bad it sounds. So let me put it another way- Carbon Sequestration is nothing more than the 21st-century version of a dump, except instead of dumping trash under a mound of dirt, we're dumping tons of CO2, delaying the inevitable as a problem for future generations to deal with.

'Carbon Sequestration' sounds so neat and clean and technical; in reality, all it is is pumping all of the bad CO2 into a spent oil well and capping it. So it never really went anywhere, its just being stored... until the day something ruptures, that is. So how is this really solving the problem? The ugly truth your government doesn't want you to know- its not.

And why do they need to spend $2.4 billion on what is basically a proof-of-concept, when our neighbors to the north are already using this technology, at EnCana's Weyburn and Midale fields? Oh, yeah, I forgot- somebody somewhere made a generous campaign donation in exchange for the no doubt lucrative contract (as a side note, EnCana is actually lobbying the Canadian government for credits for carbon dioxide they import from the U.S. and store at their sites!)...

So what, you ask, does this have to do with 'clean coal', one of the cornerstones of Obama's new energy policy ( http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy )? Nothing, really, save for the fact that they are both vaporware- they don't exist except on paper somewhere.
Now you can argue semantics with me, but basically, 'clean coal' is no different from the coal we burn today. The difference is all in how the emissions are treated. Sure, the industry may talk about different ways to prep the coal before its burned to reduce sulfur and particulates, but the end result is that the same coal is being used, and at the end of the process, it is burned releasing carbon dioxide. The 'clean' part comes in when they sequester the carbon dioxide, preventing it from entering (or stalling its release into) the environment until peak CO2 emissions subside hundreds of years from now.

Sure. Let's create the mess, then leave it for our children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children to worry about how to clean up the mess we chose to literally sweep under the rug. Sounds like excellent future planning to me.

This is not sound policy, and this is not something that should be even considered as a stepping stone to energy independence. Nuclear isn't the answer either, but I'll save that for another day.

Obama, on his website, talks about Clean Coal, among other things, creating "Millions of New Green Collar Jobs"... how many jobs, really, does every new coal-fired power plant create? The answer- in 1997, the average 300 MW coal-fired power plant had 53 employees. Just how many new power plants are you planning to build there, chief?

Why is renewable energy getting 'only' $8 billion? What, did they not contribute enough in the 2008 election?

When I relocated to Arizona, I decided to drive. Crossing from New Mexico into Arizona, I was in the middle of nowhere- no exits, no gas stations, no hotels, nothing. Then I saw a sign selling land for $200.00 an acre. I didn't think much of it at the time, because it was literally in the middle of nowhere, but lately, I've been thinking more and more about that...

How many photovoltaic panels can you squeeze into an acre of land, in the middle of nowhere, far away from anyone who would scream and yell "Not in my back yard!"?

And even with the current efficiency of around 20%, since Arizona averages 330 days of sun per year, how much power would that one acre of land generate?

And how many jobs would that create, from the highly skilled labor actually building the panels to the construction workers installing them to the utilities running the lines to hook the site up to the grid?

Wind Turbines are a subject for another thread, but there again, true renewable energy, and the things are so massive, its cost prohibitive to build them overseas and ship them here, so there are more skilled jobs that would have to go to Americans- not only the fabrication, but also the installation and the maintenance.

These are the things we should be investing in. With unemployment at a 50-year high, there are literally millions of Americans that need a job. They don't need welfare, they don't need unemployment, they don't need a handout- they need a job.

Its already a foregone conclusion that Obama is going to get his $825 billion package; if you are going to spend money we don't have, could you at least spend it wisely? Use the funding for true 'green' projects, not nostra like so-called clean coal and carbon capture/sequestration, and use the job training initiatives already in the bill to train people for these new careers.

Either that, or break out the fiddle and do your best impression of Nero, watching while this great country our Founding Fathers built burn and crumble to the ground.

There is no try. There is only do.

"We Just Have A Difference Here, And I'm President"

"We Just Have A Difference Here, And I'm President"
-President Barack Obama to Rep. Eric Cantor (R- Virginia) Friday, January 23rd, three days after his inauguration, in his first meeting with the leaders of both parties in congress.

Well so much for 'bipartisanshp' and 'reaching across the aisle'.

Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, said that Mr. Obama was being lighthearted and that lawmakers of both parties had laughed.

Oh, well, okay, then, I guess that makes it okay.

Sarcasm aside, as the maxim states, "In every joke there is a little bit of truth"; that Mr. Obama would even verbalize this notion, I think, speaks more about how he intends to work with the Legislative branch now that he is President than any of his campaign rhetoric of 'change'. I guess what he meant was that YOU are going to change; since I'm the President, its my way or the highway. Thanks for clarifying that at the outset of your administration.

At the same meeting, the President also stated, "You're correct, there's a philosophical difference, but I won, so we're going to prevail on that."

Oh, boy... "I won"...? If Mr. Obama wasn't trying to be arrogant, then it must just come naturally to him.

And what discussion predicated this exchange? Mr. Obama is unwilling to cede any ground in some of the points of his $825 billion Economic Stimulus Package that he is trying to push through Congress before they recess on February 13th. Specifically, the "Making Work Pay" tax credit, which the President wants to extend to workers who earn too little to pay income taxes.

So, wait, let me get this straight- you want to give tax credits to workers who don't even pay income tax in the first place? Seriously? This makes sense to you?

Three days down, 1,457 or so to go...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/us/politics/24stimulus.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%22We%20just%20have%20a%20difference%20here,%20and%20I'm%20president%22&st=cse