January 2009
01/30/09:
THE OBAMA DOCTRINE, I PRESUME? That's what I'm going to call it now, this notion that Rahm Emanuel has that we should USE crisis to get the goodies we want from the American taxpayers. I suppose it seems slightly less onerous than say preemptively attacking another country, but from where I sit, it's just as damaging to our long-term health.
Check out some of the stuff, er, FAT (as in pork belly) that's in this "stimulus" plan. Remember, the goal is to STIMULATE THE ECONOMY, with JOB CREATION as Job #1. Do the math, add up the billions that are going to things OTHER than that (and please don't tell me that some contractor or other will be employed when they refurbish the office buildings of the Congress, yeah, sure, but is that guy out of work now? What about all the unemployed???? What about projects that will keep people employed for longer than a few months? What about non-union white collar jobs that are being lost by the tens of thousands???]
:puke:
From Wednesday's WSJ Review & Outlook:
You won't believe what's in that stimulus bill.
So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The 647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being sold as an economic "stimulus," but now that Democrats have finally released the details we understand Rahm's point much better. This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.
We've looked it over, and even we can't quite believe it. There's $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There's even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.
[Deb: For real?? How does any of this CRAP create jobs for the former employees of Caterpillar, or the banks???]
In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make "dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy." Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There's another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.
Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren't likely to help the economy immediately. As Peter Orszag, the President's new budget director, told Congress a year ago, "even those [public works] that are 'on the shelf' generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy."
Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment. Most urban transit systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess which party?
[Deb: Yes, just like here in Charlotte they want to pump $1 Billion (with a "B") into the trains that are losing money faster than even *I* thought they would, and that experts said Uptown would have to GROW to make it worthwhile, even as Uptown jobs are going away, when they'd only need to spend a few hundred million to fix the g-damn roads! Instead we get a TOLL there. AAARGH! It's so dumb it's PAINFUL! And please don't tell me how lovely it will be to have trains b/c they are green and shit, yeah, I get that, but we are in a CRISIS! It would be lovely for ME to have a solar hot water heater too, but guess what? I CAN'T AFFORD IT! How would you like it if I went to collect welfare b/c I just HAD TO HAVE those solar panels and ran out of money to feed my kids? Yeah, not so much.]
Here's another lu-lu: Congress wants to spend $600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles. Congress also wants to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities. The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the Smithsonian, too, but this is a job creator?
[Deb: Yeah, see, again, how does this create JOBS WHERE WE NEED THEM? FOR REAL???]
Another "stimulus" secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments -- that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There's $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren't job creators.
[Deb: What was that bit about teaching a man to fish? Yeah, not gonna do that with a few extra bucks to someone who is NOT WORKING. That person needs a JOB, but giving them money won't get them a job, just a permanent entitlement for NOT HAVING ONE! I'm going to burst a blood vessel, this shit pisses me off SO MUCH!
As for the promise of accountability, some $54 billion will go to federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the Government Accountability Office have already criticized as "ineffective" or unable to pass basic financial audits. These include the Economic Development Administration, the Small Business Administration, the 10 federal job training programs, and many more.
[Deb: What was it about looking line by line and slashing things that DON'T WORK? Guess that fell by the wayside huh? :roll:]
Oh, and don't forget education, which would get $66 billion more. That's more than the entire Education Department spent a mere 10 years ago and is on top of the doubling under President Bush. Some $6 billion of this will subsidize university building projects. If you think the intention here is to help kids learn, the House declares on page 257 that "No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools." Horrors: Some money might go to nonunion teachers.
[Deb: STOP STOP! I can barely read any more! Give me a detailed account of what goes on in a late-term abortion before this shit, I can't take it!]
The larger fiscal issue here is whether this spending bonanza will become part of the annual "budget baseline" that Congress uses as the new floor when calculating how much to increase spending the following year, and into the future. Democrats insist that it will not. But it's hard -- no, impossible -- to believe that Congress will cut spending next year on any of these programs from their new, higher levels. The likelihood is that this allegedly emergency spending will become a permanent addition to federal outlays -- increasing pressure for tax increases in the bargain. Any Blue Dog Democrat who votes for this ought to turn in his "deficit hawk" credentials.
[Deb: A-FRICKIN-MEN! And any GOPer who votes for it should be drawn and quartered!!!]
This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living -- or dead -- Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, "We won the election. We wrote the bill." So they did. Republicans should let them take all of the credit.
She said WHAT??
[All emphasis mine, but does it really need to be there? Are we blind, are we illiterate? Apparently if we let this shit pass without blinking an eye, or more to the point, raising the rotunda!]
Posted by Deb on
