Porkulus that has not been spent.
Posted on 08/09/2009 2:42:15 AM PDT by Scanian
In February, the President signed a "fiscal stimulus law" to supposedly "create or save" millions of jobs. If executed according to plan, the bill will cost $789 billion, or about $2,600 for every American, and this does not even count the extra economic harm when our government levies the taxes to pay for it. Fortunately, almost 90% of the government spending planned by the law has not yet occurred -- which means that it can, and should, be stopped.
The economy has been in bad shape. Employment has fallen for a year and a half now. Real GDP has dropped four straight quarters. Many statistics show the obvious -- that this recession is worse than those in recent memory.
But the spending of our political leaders -- including the $700 billion bank bailout and the $789 billion stimulus -- is totally out of proportion, not to mention counterproductive.
Over the past four quarters, real GDP has been $655 less per person than it was in 2007. That's a lot by comparison to previous recessions, but it makes no sense to spend thousands per person to attempt to partially fix a few hundred dollar decline.
Even if the Obama Administration were right that the stimulus law would "create or save" three to four million jobs, that means each job costs the Treasury $215,000! The best case scenario for the stimulus law gives us results that are miniscule compared with the costs. In the worst case scenario, we actually pay money to further harm an already struggling economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
But next year is an election year. Don’t you want the incumbents to spend their way to victory?
I had this same thought sitting at my desk this morning - then I saw this headline in the Post.
It is a good point....if the money is unspent -— leave it that way.
I think it’s time we quit calling it a “Stimulus” and start calling it what it actually is, the “Democratic Pet Projects Fund”.
Agreed, FRiend. Personally, I’ve been referring to it all as “A Liberal Democrat’s Wet Dream”.
Porkulus that has not been spent.
Surely the money to payoff his political buds iss gone? That was a third of porkulous, if I recall....
If it isn’t, they’ll be beating on Zero’s door until they get it. And I’m sure that it was much more than 10%.
The plan is to flood the economy with loans and money next year before the elections.
Face it. We have a criminal syndicate running the country.
We have a fascist government.
That money is going to buy a lot of votes when it’s cut loose just before the election and for one brief moment makes the future look bright. After the election the inflation hits, but too late.
I think ‘Stimulus’ meant ‘stimulate the vote’ in 2010
Nice dream. But dream on.
The money that has been spent has already been leveraged 9:1 through fractional reserve banking. So, a large part of the damage has already been done.
The fed continues to purchase debt openly and cryptically.
The money that is yet to be spent is an election-year vote-buyer. No way will they pull that money back, especially if it can prop up the economy just long enough so that they don’t have to raise taxes during the election year.
That would make sense, if only they were organized enough to do it.
Yes, it's expensive, it targets certain individuals for the benefit, it's inefficient, its ineffective, and there is too much paperwork. But, it's a government program, so what's your point?
And, it actually got people into new car showrooms now, instead of next winter or never. It actually stimulated economic activity in the private sector, which is the sector that needs to be stimulated.
The rest of the spending authorized under the stimulus legislation is just a pre-authorization of future deficits, probably as a professional politician safe-guard in case some common sense and fiscal responsibility infects Washington DC.
Oh, that money will be spent. They’re saving it for election time. It’s their own private re-election fund paid for by we the taxpayers.
They are manipulating the stock market to show a slowing of the “depression” now but by about election time, guess what, they’ll need to throw more of the stimulus into the economy and rescue it once again.
But remember, we HAD to get that money immediately.
They have only allocated and spent $16,146,449,535.57
https://www.fpds.gov/
Stop it now!
There’s a ton of maintenance spending and fixing up parks and playground in the spending - busy work.
90% of the government spending planned by the law has not yet occurred .I can hear Obama and company now ‘we lost it but were looking into it trust me.
Why not use a bunch of stimulus money as a major TAX CUT
A few Congressional Republicans have suggested it but fat chance taking the Dhimmi’s slush fund away from them.
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