Stimulus Package = Crap, But Dems Approve!
The House passed the new stimulus package today. It passed without a single Republican’s vote, and with 12 Democrats also opposing.
The bill now moves towards the Senate as a $900 Billion monstrosity. Why am I such a downer? Becasue I saw what happened the first time they pulled this crap.
A mere few months ago TARP was shoved down America’s throat as being a swift and decisive action that needed to be done to stimulate the economy! The economy would crash if banks didn’t get money they needed to start lending again. What happend? A whole lot of nothing. The bill was so convoluded that it gave US citizens’ rights to see where their money was going.
And now we have another STIMULUS package. A deal that’s supposed to be quick, strong, and fast-acting to help boost jobs and the economy. But what’s in this package? Here are some of my favorite things that House Democrats have decided are necessary and represent swift, bold action to repair the nation’s economy:
- $335 million for sexually transmitted disease prevention
- $600 million to buy new cars for government employees
- $1 billion to follow up on the 2010 census, which, of course, hasn’t happened yet
Hmm…these are exactly the kind of programs we need in a STIMULUS Package!!!
This is all a joke. I really hope Obama works out. He has the potential to be one of the most loved presidents of all time…but if he keeps this up, he’s going to go down in flames. He just spent his ENTIRE CAMPAIGN talking about CHANGE. CHANGE how things work in Washington. CHANGE so that it’s no longer politics as usual. Well, Mr. Obama, this isn’t CHANGE! This is the same old crap of piling things onto another bill to try to win support when what you’re adding has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with what you’re trying to accomplish.
Please, Obama, call for an end of this crap. If not, I fear you will fall vicitim the way Bush v.1.0 did to Clinton when they kept playing “No New Taxes” over and over after Bush raised taxes when he said he wouldn’t. “Change” is good. Your stimulus package, sir, is not!
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January 29th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Looking at the three bullets you outlined, I can say that the 600 Million for cars helps the auto industry – thus helping to stimulate the economy. Without having dug in, I’m assuming that they aren’t going out buying cadilacs for the employees of the whitehouse. Rather, it would make sense to proide transportation for things like road clean up, construction crews, buses etc.
Not sure about how the census or STD helps “stimulate” anything though.
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January 29th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I am worried about this too, but I am not too quick to judge. I know actions like the stimulus packages are extremely complicated and take time to take effect. I think it is too soon to call the last stimulus package a complete failure. I am thinking that mid to late this year is when it is time to start calling the first stimulus package a failure if it the loan activity has not picked up.
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January 29th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Admin…true, I guess you could say that the auto $$ will help stimulate the auto industry.
It’s a similar proposition that the banks used when they spent millions of TARP funds for corporate office renovations, or for conferences at luxury resorts.
I’d imagine there are some good things in this package (although the $500 tax cut for taxpayers over the next 2 years isn’t one of them…didn’t we try that last year? did it really do ANYTHING?) …BUT, why cram all of this other SHIT into the STIMULUS PACKAGE?
Let OBAMA really CHANGE things by going out on a limb and having a STIMULUS PACKAGE that ONLY ADDRESSES ECONOMIC STIMULS. Then, we can come back and deal with the government’s auto problems with another bill, and pull out the Chlamydia Clause as yet another bill, etc.
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January 29th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I think in large part the first stimulus or first half i should say has failed. My understanding is only half of that money has been sent out to banks. The man in charge of overseeing it admitted he made a mistake when he gave the money to the banks blindly and said moving forward there would be provisions that the banks would only get money if they showed how they planned to release it and thus help the economy become healthy.
As for this one I’m not sure why the House Democrats put the STD portion of the bill in. I know that in the past with most bills there are usually little things like this in all of them. They really don’t have much to do with what they are passing but they sneak it in there anyway as their way of getting back at the other side. It’s bullshit. It should not be done and in particular it is petty and really has no place in a package like this at a time of need like this.
I’m sure some who are more in the know of politics would laugh at that and say it is ignorant and I just don’t understand how things work. That may be true, but in a perfect political world it would seem like this stuff would not happen. There are not many “good” politicians though.
I have honestly not looked closely but i think more then anything it is meant to show people that we are trying to be proactive. Confidence is what the economy needs more then anything else. The hope is some of these things do start to push forward and a little confidence in some areas seeps into others.
I think we are focused on a small portion of the bill that does not make sense. Maybe there are some portions that are in there as grudge holding democrats try to get back for all the time Republicans pushed through bills with things they did not like when they had power, but the vast majority of that money is going to TRY to help the economy. 800 billion dollars of the bill is not designed for bullshit democratic leaning ideas with only 150 or so billion going towards efforts to stimulate the economy.
One thing to keep in mind is some of these things may look like they don’t have an effect but they will. I heard an interview with a company that does weatherizing of homes. People can’t afford to do it. This package would go to help ensure homes were properly weatherized. At first it’s like WTF does that have to do with anything? Then they bring on a guy on who owns the weatherizing company he has had to lay off most of his staff. If this goes through BAM he is going to have to hire them back and more because the bill will help to ensure that ( I think lower income or maybe federal) housing is properly taken care of and he anticipates he will be busy for an extended of period of time doing this. that is just one example I heard recently.
Economist don’t know if this will work or not. The alternative is to sit by and do nothing. There is some BS in there but I think there is a lot of meat there too.
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January 29th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Are we all numb to these numbers? Don’t focus on $2 Billion of crap? That’s a lot of crap…crap that we’ll be paying for for a long, long time.
The dirty little secret no one’s talking about right now is that our taxes are going to go through the roof over the next four years. How do I know this? Hmm…look no further than almost 2 TRILLION dollars of stimulus packages that we will have passed in the last 6 months if this goes through. How are we going to pay for these? From our pockets.
Let’s DEFINATELY focus on these smaller numbers, because they’re NOT SMALL NUMBERS!
And one last thing…why is there a rush to pass something for the sake of passing something? Didn’t we go through this with TARP? Our government was set up to move slowly so that emotions wouldn’t hamper our judgement. That’s what the checks and balances are there for (among other things). Everytime we’ve made a hasty decision like this, it’s come back to hurt us (by not doing what it was supposed to and saddling us with enormous debt).
Seems like everytime I read that old story it was the tourtise that kicked the hare’s ass every time.
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January 29th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
On the auto industry:
A stimulus package wouldn’t be to “all inclusive” if it didn’t touch the auto industry. The auto industry cascades into a whole slew of other retail, manufacturer and service industries. Buying 600m dollars worth of vehicles is an excellent stimulus – and something required.
I know it’s human nature to want to pick something apart that you don’t believe in. However, this question begs to be asked: Is there a glass half full scenario?
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January 29th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Admin, here’s the deal:
$600m to autos can be a good deal, but remember that we’re paying for these autos anyway. And they’re for normal operations, meaning that we were buying them anyway. So let’s just call a spade a spade and put that back in the budget where it belongs. It’s not stimulus, it’s maintenance.
And the half-full scenario? I don’t think we should look past reckless spending in the name of a hopeful bill because 80% of it looks good. If the 80% is good, let’s do it. Forget the 20%. Let’s not forget that times are tough, and we’re going to have to foot the bill for all of these stimulus packages.
How great will the stimulus package look **IF** it actually works and turns things around in two years….only to have taxes go through the roof to pay for everything and we’re back where we started?
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January 29th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I don’t think we’re getting around having stimulus package. Something was going to be done. So we were going to have the taxes. Just sitting back and doing nothing would be the mistake.
So in my my mind, the big question is, will this bill be better or worse then one passed months from now after many iterations and reviews?
The economy is pretty bad. At some point there is opportunity-loss that we have to consider.
If this bill could have eliminated the 20% (using this number so that we don’t debate around how much of the bill is crap) within a few weeks, and made everybody happy is it worth waiting. Probably yes.
However, politics takes longer then 2 weeks, you can’t ever please Everybody….so I’m not sure what else we could have done.
I’m wondering if Fox news is offering up a master plan to fix the problem….or if they are just ranting about how bad this one is. It’s easy to criticize. Hard to create.
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January 29th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Agreed…easy to criticize; hard to create.
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February 9th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
* $335 million for sexually transmitted disease prevention
This is one small part of a multi-billion dollar education package. It is not much when you think about the number of schools it is split between. I don’t care whether it is there or not, but it might actually save the government money if it decreases the cost of health care for those under government health coverage.
* $600 million to buy new cars for government employees
This is spending to replace the federal fleet with hybrids and electric vehicles to save the government in energy expenses. The US government spends more on energy than any other entity in the nation. It also falls under the efficiency standards he has set. He wants to cut the federal government’s energy consumption by 50%.
* $1 billion to follow up on the 2010 census, which, of course, hasn’t happened yet
The 2010 census is already being compiled. They are still hiring people for temporary employment for the census if anyone needs a job. It takes months to collect the information and then a good deal of time to code it, organize it, and run the statistics on it to ready it for release next year. I suppose the coding organizing and analysis is what they mean by follow up.
The thing that pisses me off is the changes that the Republicans made to the Senate version. They took money away from programs like Head Start, schools, infrastructure, and assistance for those in need just to turn around and allocate it to defense spending. We spend more on “defense” than the rest of the world combined. They get enough money. It needs to be cut in favor of education and real stimulus.
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February 9th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Some interesting points CG.
The more i hear about the stimulus package the more i like it. I think it has a chance to help push things forward.
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February 9th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Not buying it CG…
I’m not saying that the items in the “stimulus” package are all wrong…just that they’re absolutely nothing to do with “stimulus” in them.
Education programs…cool, but these are EXISTING programs that are being expanded.
New fleet of vehicles…fine, but there is already a BUDGET PROCESS to deal with these appropriations!
The Census…yup, we do those regularly, SO WHAT’S NEW ABOUT THIS?
What part of this piece of crap is actually supposed to STIMULATE THE ECONOMY? Yes, there are some parts in here that have merit, BUT GET ALL OF THE OTHER CRAP OUT!
If you really wanted to stimulate the economy, try these out:
– Get rid of business income taxes for 1 year. In 2006 the Gov collected ~$350 billion. This would help companies keep what ever money they’re earning now, as well as keep existing jobs while allowing companies to possibly expand.
– Give people a 100% tax deduction for the purchase price of a new American Made car. Want to support the auto industry, let everyone who buys a car take a non-refundable tax credit.
– Give people a $15,000 tax deduction for the purchase of personal real estate. Want to stimulate the housing industry? This should not just cover new homes, but any home purchased, regardless of the person’s income bracket.
You could do all of these for the same or less money than we’re talking about with the stimulus package, and they’d IMPACT THE ECONOMY NOW! Not like this bill, where a majority of the funds that we’re saying MUST BE PASSED NOW OR THE WORLD WILL END won’t even be able to be spent until 2010 or 2011.
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February 9th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
In the spirit of the Stimulus package, I’d like to announce my own personal stimulus package…
I’m personally going to sponser a job saving plan of $5,120 over the next 8 months (beginning in April) as a program to help foster educational development for children.
Sure, to the lay-person I might just be paying for daycare for scruffpup, but the Democrats have taught me that I can take ordinary expenses that I’m going to be doing anyway…that I’ve already planned on doing…and call it a Stimulus package.
Heck, I bet I could get this thing up to $10k or so if I add in all of the diapers, clothes and gas expenses that I’ll incur with the new Scruffpup!
How about that…One man…contributing over $10k in stimulus for the rest of the year! Oh, but I better act now and send everyone out there the image that my SWIFT, BOLD action will SAVE THE ECONOMY!!!
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February 9th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Thanks scruffd0g. We’ve been looking for a way out of this economic nightmare! The scruffpup stim pack sounds like a viable long-term package.
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