I want CHANGE but it looks like Washington is just to big for Obama to make a dent.
As the new Obama government begins to look at how to get the economy going, many of our legislative leaders are using the bill to spend YOUR money on non-stimulus items and the truth is, our kids are going to have to pay this back. Take a read of the Fiscal Stimulus Bill right here and decide for yourself if you think these items are focused on jump-starting the economy or if we have gotten back to “politics as usual” rather than “change is in the air”.
A Wall Street Journal editorial provides some examples of what fiscal conservatives are opposed to in the bill. A snippet:
“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.”
Meanwhile, there are Democrats who aren’t crazy about the stimulus plan either. Here’s a lengthy excerpt from a Washington Post story:
In testimony before the House Budget Committee yesterday, Alice M. Rivlin, who was President Bill Clinton’s budget director, suggested splitting the plan, implementing its immediate stimulus components now and taking more time to plan the longer-term transformative spending to make sure it is done right. “Such a long-term investment program should not be put together hastily and lumped in with the anti-recession package. The elements of the investment program must be carefully planned and will not create many jobs right away,” said Rivlin, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. The risk, she said, is that “money will be wasted because the investment elements were not carefully crafted.”
Here are what some economists are saying:
The University of Chicago’s Gary Becker, a Nobel laureate in economics, warns that “the true value of these government stimulus programs may be limited because they will be put together hastily, and are likely to contain a lot of political pork and other inefficiencies.” Becker says that in that case, spending could do more harm than good.
Naturally, the process of porkification already is underway. An analysis by taxpayer group Americans for Limited Government shows the $825 billion bill includes $200 million for beautification of the National Mall and millions for new cars for federal bureaucrats. Then there’s the flap over contraceptive-related spending. If cars and condoms qualify as emergency “stimulus” spending, what doesn’t?
Some of Becker’s colleagues are more emphatic. John Cochrane, a finance professor at the University of Chicago’s business school, published a detailed paper this week on the topic. He sketches an argument for lower taxes right now – instead of higher spending – while simultaneously whittling down the budget deficit.
Another option, he says, would be for the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury to print more money and issue more bonds. Cochrane writes: “Some economists tell me, ‘Yes, all our models, data, and analysis for the last 40 years say fiscal stimulus doesn’t work, but don’t you really believe it anyway?’ This is an astonishing attitude. How can a scientist ‘believe’ something different than what he or she spends a career writing and teaching? At a minimum policy-makers shouldn’t put much weight on such ‘beliefs,’ since they explicitly don’t represent expert scientific inquiry.”
New York University’s Thomas Sargent says, according to the Chicago Tribune: “The calculations that I have seen supporting the stimulus package are back-of-the-envelope ones that ignore what we have learned in the last 60 years of macroeconomic research.”
Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economics professor who was chairman of George W. Bush’s Council of Economics Advisors, is a self-described stimulus skeptic; he recently pointed out the Democratic Congress’ own budget office says that only 8 percent of the proposed “stimulus” spending will take place in the 2009 fiscal year.
Even though most House Democrats say they will back the plan, many reject the administration’s argument, saying that infrastructure projects could easily be expedited, that the economy will need additional infusions for years to come and that the real reason for shunning infrastructure was to make room for tax cuts. Obama, with a public mandate to do something big, is missing a rare opportunity to rebuild the country, they say.
“Every penny of the $825 billion is borrowed against the future of our kids and grandkids, and so the question is: What benefit are we providing them? What are we doing for the country? It’s the difference between real investment that will serve the nation for 30, 50 years and tax cuts, and that’s a very poor tradeoff,” said Rep. Peter A. DeFazio, a Democrat for Oregon. “I go to my district and people say, ‘Yeah, I can use 10 extra bucks a week, but I would rather see more substantial investment.’ We’ve gone through a couple bubbles that were borrowing and consumer-driven. We want a recovery that’s solid and based in investment and productivity, and that points us at building things that will serve us decades to come.
Here are ten recipients of this “fiscal stimulus bill” — you decide if this is stimulus worth your children’s wages for decades.
1. $4.19 billion to ACORN – According to House Minority Leader John Boehner’s website, the legislation makes ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) eligible for $4.19 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities.” Although originally intended for other groups, House Democrats are pushing to make the money available to community organizations like ACORN. ACORN’s numerous counts of voter registration fraud, federal investigations, and extensive role in the collapse of the housing market and subsequent financial meltdown are apparently of no concern to Congressional Democrats.
2. $200 million for the beautification of the National Mall, including $21 million for sod – Although it probably won’t grow the economy or jobs, at least it will grow the grass. And that’s not the kind of green Americans desperately need now.
3. Over $200 million for contraceptives and the abortion industry – Perhaps one of the most controversial measures included in the “stimulus” bill is the plan to use taxpayer money to finance the expanded federal funding of contraceptives, “family planning” services, and abortions. When asked on ABC how such a provision helps the economy, Nancy Pelosi offered up “no apologies”, remarking that the money would “reduce costs to the state and to the federal government,” apparently meaning that poor people are simply too much of a drain.
4. $650 million for digital TV coupons – When the national February 17th transition to digital television ensues, Democrats insist—to the tune of $650 million—that the American people must continue to watch their TVs.
5. $136 billion for the creation of at least 32 new government programs – More than a third of H.R.1’s spending provisions would go towards growing the government—not the economy.
6. $600 million for new cars for the federal bureaucrats – Although Democrats are doing all they can to encourage Americans to sacrifice their planet-warming vehicles on the altar of environmentalism, they are ensuring that those in the government will have a garage-full of shiny new cars to take out on afternoon drives around the lush National Mall.
7. $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts – In short, elitism lives.
8. $6 billion for colleges and universities – As Rep. Boehner also points out, many of these higher learning institutions already have billion dollar endowments. And, as ALG News Bureau has pointed out, taxpayer financed four-year colleges are as exorbitant as they may be antiquated.
9. $300 billion to bail out state governments – Even the fiscally inept states like California and New York are asking for a federal bailout. It appears the days of state governments taking care of themselves and balancing their own budgets are over. And, of course, the federal government is more than willing to capitulate. As Representative Boehner remarked:
““Providing $300 billion of this package to states—$166 billion in direct aid to the states, another $140 billion in education funding—this is not going to do anything, anything to stimulate our economy, to help the—our ailing economy.”
10. Increased spending on over 150 different federal programs – In their “targeted” plan, Democrats have embraced a shot-gun approach to funding such programs as Amtrak, despite the fact that only a minuscule number of Americans use—or ever can use—the service.
In summary, the top ten list is meant to illustrate that Congressional Democrats have little intention of actually stimulating the economy in an effective manner. Rather is is the old “politics as usual”. Employing scare-tactics and painting grim pictures of a looming economic wasteland, Big Government is seizing the opportunity to slip in special interest payouts and reckless pork spending under the guise of “economic recovery.” Hopefully the nation’s leaders will recover some common sense and muster the will power to stop the so-called “stimulus” bill when it ultimately comes up for a vote in Congress.
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