Posted on 01/28/2009 11:50:31 AM PST by kellynla
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.
APWe'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.
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.
The Opinion Journal Widget Download Opinion Journal's widget and link to the most important editorials and op-eds of the day from your blog or Web page. 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Online Directory for the 111th Congress
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
mark
The cost of the bailout ($4.6165 trillion) exceeds the inflation adjusted cost of the Marshall Plan, New Deal, S&L Bailout, NASA's Lifetime Budget, the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraq wars and also the Louisiana Purchase, combined ($3.92 trillion).
Adding to the misery index of freedom.
I posted this on another thread; fits here too:
To me this is so obvious. What Obama and the Dems in Congress are doing is Good Cop/Bad Cop. Obama is good cop. I’m trying so hard for bipartisanship, I will cross over to our Pub colleagues and extend the hand. I want their input and help on issues because we have such a national crisis, bipartisan solutions are what we need. I need them for cover when my plans fail; I want them to be in on the blame.
Now, Bad Cop. Pelosi/Reid concoct a totally one-sided bailout the country bill, with no Pub input at all, no crossing over the aisle to the Pubs, no use of any Pub suggestions or ideas, and no allowing of any PUbs into the room when doing the drafts of the giant spending bill that will go to the Senate where it will be virtually rubber-stamped.
Now the bill goes to Obama’s desk. Well, says Obama, I would have preferred a bi-partisan bill, but I can’t veto this spending bill that is so direly needed for our nation’s survival, so, in spite of the lack of Pub input, I will sign it anyway. After all, it’s all I can do, as it is Congress that produces the bill, my fellow Dems in fact, and therefore I have to sign it due to the press of time.
Job well done. Obama comes out smelling like a rose. The onus for the bill is on the Dems in Congress, and they don’t care as they are totally pent up with desire to spend as much taxpayer money as possible on their pet projects. They’ve been waiting for this opportunity for years.
Obama and the Dems in Congress are totally in cahoots. They each know their roles in this Kabuki theater dance. Obama gets all the liberal stuff he wants under the guise that it’s those Dems in Congress doing this, and because we must move fast, I will go along with the bills they present me (translation, thank goodness we both can get these liberal policies put in place that I actually have wanted from the gitgo).
And the fools in the liberal and conservative media, all hoodwinked, go on and on about how much trouble Obama is going to have with his own Dem political base in the halls of Congress, not with the Pubs. Yeah right, Obama is delighted that the Congressional Dems will present him with exactly what he wants, total FDR liberal spending sprees for him to sign into law. And the wimp Pubs will make no serious moves to stop him (although they really can’t), because they are afraid to cross him early in the game. What some of the Pubs don’t seem to realize is that Obama will try to do as much as he can to turn us into a socialist state in the shortest amount of time possible, and upfront, as he knows his socialist efforts and abilities to get legislation to his desk to sign off on will decrease with time.
If we don’t stop him from the beginning of his regime, by the time we hit year two or three of it, he will have already accomplished many of his goals for drastically changing our country into a socialist state. The deed will be done. So quickly he is on to SS and Medicare/Medicaid, and quickly on to Nationalist Healthcare, and quickly on to nationalizing the banks and other industries, all of it as fast as possible before anyone catches on. And as Obama has about a 68 percent lovefest going on right now, it will be quite a while before the momentarily euphoric public catches on that his policies aren’t all they are cracked up to be, but by that time it will be too late. Legislatively, he and his fellow Dems in Congress, bound at their extremely liberal hips, will have accomplished their aims, the United Socialist States of America.
The Democrats won't lose another election ever again. And Amnesty will pass all alone by itself, adding tens of millions more Democrats to get their share of free handouts at the trough.
Since the ‘Rats control both houses of Congress & the WH,
there's isn't much the GOP can do about anything except get a testicle & spine implant and find true blue conservatives to run for congressional offices in 2010.
“Manufactured Financial Crisis”!!!!!
Never have we had an Administration or Congress with less integrity or competence.. The fools who CAUSED the problem are now going to compound it under the guise of fixing it!
Must we hang them all to get their attention....
Have we become too civilized to resist a renegade government?
TWELVE CENTS ON THE DOLLAR FOR ACTUAL PROJECTS THAT CREATE JOBS AND ARE WORTHWHILE PROJECTS??????
UNBELIEVABLE!! PORK PORK PORK AND PAY SOOOOOOOIEEEEEE SOOOOOOIE PIG PIG PIG
sorry Kelly for shouting........
Call the social money political heroin.
The Democrats won't lose another election ever again. And Amnesty will pass all alone by itself, adding tens of millions more Democrats to get their share of free handouts at the trough.
You're exactly right, with ACORN in the picture, there is no way a repub can win ever again. ACORN has it down pat, just how to fix an election from now on!
I’ve spent a good bit of time using that site today. ;-)
Check out this crap !
Obama-o-nomics: "The public believes anything I tell them, that: 1) My plan creates or saves lots of jobs , 2) My plan is mostly massive government long term spending that must be passed immediately or else, 3) My plan may not even work and we may need even 'more of the same', (more handouts, more gov jobs, more dem party payoffs) later "
I thought I was pretty cynical, but this attempt at the biggest pork-barrelling in history by calling it a national crisis has got me reeling. Time to put a stop to this nonsense.
Bush spending 700 Billion on useless stimulus fluff = BAD.
Obama spending 825 Billion on useless stimulus fluff = Good.
Change, or more of the same?
Agreed!
The fools who CAUSED the problem are now going to compound it under the guise of fixing it! Must we hang them all to get their attention....
I'm beginning to wonder what it will take to remind these boobs whom they are working for.
What a load of ....
bttt
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