Stimulus Package - Debate & Discussion

[raiderx27]

question

is this a stimulis package or is this an omnibus budget spending bill thinly disguised as a (all important we have to have it right hear rigt now or this country is goin down the shitter faster than it is) stimulus package. never mindthat most of the 850 billion will be spent in 2011. as one congressman from texas put it if you took the 850 billion for the stimlus package, the 700 billion t.a.r.p. fund and the 1 trillon in budgetery spending every legeal taxpaying person could get a 3.1 million dollar tax free check from the goverment to spend and stimulate te economy as we see fit

 

[Acanthus]

From what ive read:

There are new positions established providing someone to oversee EVERY department recieving aid to make sure funds are used appropriately.

Bailout funds have to be 50% in use within 1 year of the funds being appropriated to someone for a project.

The state of IL gets no funds unless Blago gets the boot.

Only American Steel and Iron can be used on construction projects unless it is more than 25% above the price of foreign steel or there is a supply shortage.

10% of funds apropriated to certain departments will have to be used in counties with "persistant relative poverty".

All funds have to go through the governments e-verify program.

Transparency requirements:
All federal agencies getting money through the program must show on the transparency website "recovery.gov" their planned use for the funds, all awarded grants must be shown when they are made available for bidding and when they are doled out.

State and City governmentsmust also report to recovery.gov:
and shall include the following:
(i) A description of the infrastructure investment funded.
(ii) The purpose of the infrastructure investment.
(iii) The total cost of the infrastructure investment.
(iv) The rationale of the agency for funding the infrastructure investment.
(v) The name of the person to contact at the agency if there are concerns with the infrastructure investment and, an email address for the Federal official in the agency whom the public can contact.

Theres a lot more about fair bidding on the contracts, and transparency to the process. Every american citizen will be able to write, email, and phone their inspector general about the appropriation of funds. Every complaint must be checked by the inspector general.

There are extensive provisions for protecting whistleblowers that expose corruption too...

 

[Acanthus]

All of the stuff related to the DOE seems to be devoted to battery technologies, power delivery, and clean power sources. There is some money appropriated for research grants as well.

I see this as a fantastic measure toword creating jobs and getting us energy independant.

Many of the provisions in the small print are LOANS and not GRANTS. So money derived from the success of such research grants will be funneled back through this plan.

-------------------------------

-Theres provisions to increase the protection of our borders and ports by refurbishing exsisting structures and building "new facilities".

-Buying a new fleet of vehicles for the federal government that is fuel efficient. (this will prop up the automakers indirectly)

-Theres loans for establishing new and bolstering exsisting small businesses. There is a specific provision preventing anyone illegaly in the US from being able to aquire either of these loans.

-No firms that have used illegals in the past will be able to aquire loans.

-No firms whose acting officers or owners fail a criminal backround check will be able to aquire loans.

-There is additional funding for FEMA for food, water, and shelter.

-Funding for construction of new things in national parks, as well as maintinence.

-The National Mall reconstruction plan requires that HALF of the money is from private sources and it is matched by the government. So the people bitching about the cost probably havent read the fine print.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

RightField:

Nice opinion pieces you posted. Well-written, pleasantly thought out and affirming the writer's stance on what they think.

Ya know, I remember waaaaaay back when we were being sold by our then-Fearless Leader on a distracting and fairly unnecessary money-draining war — well, it was more like we had no choice but to shut up and accept it instead of being sold, but let's not nitpick over technicalities at this point — and we really didn't know how it was going to turn out in the end despite all the crystal balling about how negative it could be, just that we were all told certain things to be sure about that rather swiftly turned out to be untruths and it impacted many things later on down the line in the negative sense that I'm sure we're all feeling like an hemmoroidal itch in our sphincter cavities right now...but back then, we were on top of the world and had every right to believe in the post-terrorist attack feel-good parties we deserved. Those bottle-service and high-rise apartment tower construction years before the illusionary fog was lifted were damn fun...at least for those who could afford them.

So I suppose we can take all these GREAT opinions on how the stimulus package is soooo fucking bad for us and file them away for better use in the "I told you so" baskets about two to four years from now when things are shot to hell AS PREDICTED and the Republicans can have their desired comeuppance moment and elect Palin or whomever it is that can save us from the failed scourge of the Obama Years. Because Buddha knows if they had their majority way with the bill, there'd be NO complaining, NO pussy-ass bitch-moaning and alla them would be saying, "oh, you liberal naysayers, just give it a chance, now willya?"

What's it like going through life knowing you're a waste of skin?

Post your kewl graphic again.

http://content.imagesocket.com/images/STFU_MILES_2bb8f.jpg

 

[Acanthus]

Man, im 1/4 of the way through the document and i havent seen a single thing in here that is unethical. Im not seeing the pork. Everything in here will create or sustain jobs while improving the nation as a whole...

 

[Acanthus]

-Provisions to improve equipment and refurbish buildings for the USGS.

-Construction (and improvement of exsisting) infrastructure in Indian territories.

-Funds to keep states solvent during the economic downturn.

-Funds to improve wildfire fighting.

-Funds to refurbish and revitalize the smithsonian institutes various facilities.

-$50,000,000 to support NON PROFIT arts groups that will lose philanthropic funding during the economic downturn.

-Funds for employee retraining programs (vital to retraining the laid off workforce)

-Special funds alotted for employees retraining into booming and emerging business sectors.

-Funds to support community service jobs for the elderly.

-Extension of unemployment insurance during the economic downturn.

-$1BIL for renovation of exsisting health facilites within the US.

-$642Mil for renovation of exsisting facilities for the CDC.

-$1.5Bil for renovation of exsisting private health facilites that qualify.

-$700Mil for medicare procedural effectivness research. (a case study designed to improve upon the effectiveness of funds spent on medicare in the future).

-A program that will help pay for child care for workers in retraining.

-A program that will help improve low income housing through energy efficiency upgrades.

-A very specifically outlined plan to promote and improve health awareness among american citizens. Assigned a director who can appropriate funds to groups who will do this (very tight restrictions on transferability of funds).

 

[Acanthus]

is this a stimulis package or is this an omnibus budget spending bill thinly disguised as a (all important we have to have it right hear rigt now or this country is goin down the shitter faster than it is) stimulus package. never mindthat most of the 850 billion will be spent in 2011. as one congressman from texas put it if you took the 850 billion for the stimlus package, the 700 billion t.a.r.p. fund and the 1 trillon in budgetery spending every legeal taxpaying person could get a 3.1 million dollar tax free check from the goverment to spend and stimulate te economy as we see fit

Your math is bad.

If even 5% of americans were the only ones paying taxes, thats 15,000,000 people.

It would take $46.5 trillion to give 3.1m to 5% of the population.

 

[Acanthus]

I am now halfway through the document and have failed to find a single bad source of funding in here.

So i dont have to continue typing about all the good things in this document, please just voice your specific complaints, and ill address them.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

What's it like going through life knowing you're a waste of skin?

Post your kewl graphic again.

What's it like going through life knowing your mom wished she had taken it up the ass instead?

 

[Acanthus]

So whats the deal guys?

Did none of you actually verify the claims against HR-01?

It is my understanding that the republican alternative was a nearly equal costly tax cut for corporations and the upper class...

"How do you defeat a big monster, with an EVEN EQUALLY BIG MONSTER!"

 

[Le Jacquelope]

So whats the deal guys?

Did none of you actually verify the claims against HR-01?

It is my understanding that the republican alternative was a nearly equal costly tax cut for corporations and the upper class...

"How do you defeat a big monster, with an EVEN EQUALLY BIG MONSTER!"

Congratulations. Thou hast cornered thine opponents and they have fled from before thee.

In a while they'll come up somewhere and say they stopped replying because you weren't worth the time...

 

[IrezumiKiss]

So whats the deal guys?

Did none of you actually verify the claims against HR-01?

It is my understanding that the republican alternative was a nearly equal costly tax cut for corporations and the upper class...

"How do you defeat a big monster, with an EVEN EQUALLY BIG MONSTER!"

See, you came at this with an unfair advantage because as I understand it, you're researching this for a term paper instead of logging onto an internet forum every day because you're killing time in your life, correct? There ya go. Scholars trump would-be internet pundits.

All the doom-and-gloomers here making these biased threads just parrot what's being fed to them without truly reading things for themselves or actually trying to put brain matter to practice. Not saying the opinion pieces being thrown up aren't valid for their opinion, but it's only what they want to see. It's enough for them to be told what's going to happen instead of actually waiting to see the end result of a different way of doing things than what they're used to. Which not-so-ironically brought us to this crisis.

 

[huskie]

Fully approved Lit Stimulus package

http://www.g-pic.com/images/Lick_026-ta47ycltrckx_post.jpg http://www.g-pic.com/images/Lick_027-k8e64o8rvyhdb_post.jpg http://www.g-pic.com/images/Lick_029-ij58ojjf1ajis_post.jpg

 

[RightField]

See, you came at this with an unfair advantage because as I understand it, you're researching this for a term paper instead of logging onto an internet forum every day because you're killing time in your life, correct? There ya go. Scholars trump would-be internet pundits.

All the doom-and-gloomers here making these biased threads just parrot what's being fed to them without truly reading things for themselves or actually trying to put brain matter to practice. Not saying the opinion pieces being thrown up aren't valid for their opinion, but it's only what they want to see. It's enough for them to be told what's going to happen instead of actually waiting to see the end result of a different way of doing things than what they're used to. Which not-so-ironically brought us to this crisis.

The bottom line on it all, to make it simple, is this:

1) The democrats want stimulate the economy by taking more money from the private sector to spend on things that they've wanted to spend money on for many years, but have been prevented from doing by fiscal prudence, the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who claim that it's irresponsible spending. This is an enlargement of Government (34 new Government Programs) that will be permanent (when have you heard of a Government program getting cancelled outside of Defense) and a shrinkage of the capital available the commercial markets (businesses that want to invest and expand). This creates a few (very few) new government jobs, but the reduction and capital available to private industry is going to cause more layoffs and overall, a net loss of jobs (private industry is much more efficient). The resources will be directed by a small handful of government bureaucrats and much will go to congressional districts where a democratic official did a favor, did some work on the election, etc. and to other organizations that support the democrats (NEA, Planned Parenthood, ACORN)...whatever those few government guys decide. This concentration of money and power in the hands of a few leads to corruption (and we're seeing democrat corruption exploding in newspapers across the land).

2) The Republicans want to take less money from the citizens (lower taxes) and let them use it for investment in business, ideas, innovations and other things that the people want. Instead of going to a few powerful Government Bureaucrats who will reward their buddies, it will go to millions of people who will spend the money in the interests of themselves and their families on whatever they want and that will spur investment and job creation. Reducing taxes on businesses will mean that we're in a better competitive situation (our taxes not being higher than our competitors any more) and the money can be used for investment and job growth. With money staying in the hands of people, there's far less chance for Government corruption (if the govies don't get the money in the first place, there's far less chance for corruption).

The choice is very simple actually.....money for the people or money to government bureaucrats.

 

[RightField]

A nice summary by a guy named Boaz:

Even if regulators are as smart as Leonardo da Vinci and as incorruptible as Mother Teresa, they can never have as much knowledge as the decentralized, competitive market process, so planned economies and planned industries fall further and further behind free-market systems. But in reality, even if they're smart, they're not incorruptible. Political influence always comes into play. What we're seeing with the bailout funds will also happen with the stimulus money.

Government planners claim to be able to aggregate all the available information and make informed decisions for the whole society. But market economies clearly produce far more economic growth than planned economies. It isn't just the United States versus the Soviet Union or East Germany versus West Germany. Consider the customer service and technological advances you get from FedEx versus the post office, or Microsoft and Apple versus the DMV.

If you want money flowing to the companies with good lobbyists and powerful congressmen, then the stimulus bill may accomplish something. But we should all recognize that we're taking money out of the competitive, individually directed part of society and turning it over to the politically controlled sector. Politicians rather than consumers will pick winners and losers. That's not a recipe for recovery.

 

[RightField]

Every day brings to light further pork if not fraud and abuse in this bill that represents a huge increase in the power that the government has over our lives.

 

[KingOrfeo]

2) The Republicans want to take less money from the citizens (lower taxes) and let them use it for investment in business, ideas, innovations and other things that the people want.

Tried during the Bush years. Didn't work out so well.

 

[Xplorr7]

Acanthus - thank you for the insights you have provided by reading the bill. It makes me feel a little better about a bill that is, unfortunately, likely to pass.

Two broad reasons for my opposition:

1. Way too little job creation in the bill.

2. Spending your way out of a recession is a proven failure; why spend over $1 trillion (incl interest), when you can stimulate business and job growth with tax cuts?

Read about the Davis-Bacon Wage Provision that has been included:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/wm2253.cfm

It will increase construction costs by $17 billion and reduce jobs. Plain common sense has eluded the Democrats that drafted this bill.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Every day brings to light further pork if not fraud and abuse in this bill that represents a huge increase in the power that the government has over our lives.

So since every day is making all these "discoveries" of pork if not fraud and abuse in the light, how much pork do you think we'll all have to roast on the barbecue grill by July 4th?

Oh, by the way, Wall Street decided to give out $18B in bonuses to its execs this year. Obama has nothing to do with that "trickle down" theory in practice, but you can keep on railing every day against the possible but as yet unproven negatives you look for in the stim pack while other people who really don't give a shit about you or your way of life in this country live high on the hog despite their failures.

What Red Ink? Wall Street Paid Hefty Bonuses

It will increase construction costs by $17 billion and reduce jobs. Plain common sense has eluded the Democrats that drafted this bill.

Hey, maybe they should ask Wall Street for that $18B in bonuses to cover those construction costs. There'd still be a cool billion left over for a party, ya thunk?

 

[Xplorr7]

Irezumi you may want to read this article:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/obama_and_the_times_get_half_t.html

so you can get the other half of the story that Obama missed (or may simply not understand).

 

[RightField]

Look at the Time
In Congress and the boardroom, failure to recognize a new era.
By PEGGY NOONAN

The party-line vote in favor of the stimulus package could have been more, could have produced not only a more promising bill but marked the beginning of something new, not a postpartisan era (there will never be such a thing and never should be; the parties exist to fight through great political questions) but a more bipartisan one forced by crisis and marked by—well, let's call it seriousness.

It's a win because of the obvious headline: Nine days after inauguration, the new president achieves a major Congressional victory, House passage of an economic stimulus bill by a vote of 244-188. It wasn't even close. This is major.

But do you know anyone, Democrat or Republican, dancing in the street over this? You don't. Because most everyone knows it isn't a good bill, and knows that its failure to receive a single Republican vote, not one, suggests the old battle lines are hardening. Back to the Crips versus the Bloods. Not very inspiring.

The president will enjoy short-term gain. In the great circle of power, to win you have to look like a winner, and to look like a winner you have to win. He did and does. But for the long term, the president made a mistake by not forcing the creation of a bill Republicans could or should have supported.

And click here to order her new book, Patriotic Grace.Consider the moment. House Republicans had conceded that dramatic action was needed and had grown utterly supportive of the idea of federal jobs creation on a large scale. All that was needed was a sober, seriously focused piece of legislation that honestly tried to meet the need, one that everyone could tinker with a little and claim as their own. Instead, as Rep. Mike Pence is reported to have said to the president, "Know that we're praying for you. . . . But know that there has been no negotiation [with Republicans] on the bill—we had absolutely no say." The final bill was privately agreed by most and publicly conceded by many to be a big, messy, largely off-point and philosophically chaotic piece of legislation. The Congressional Budget Office says only 25% of the money will even go out in the first year. This newspaper, in its analysis, argues that only 12 cents of every dollar is for something that could plausibly be called stimulus.

What was needed? Not pork, not payoffs, not eccentric base-pleasing, group-greasing forays into birth control as stimulus, as the speaker of the House dizzily put it before being told to remove it.

"Business as usual." "That's Washington." But in 2008 the public rejected business as usual. That rejection is part of what got Obama elected.

Instead the air of D.C. dithering continues, and this while the Labor Department reported Thursday what everyone knew was coming, increased unemployment. The number of continuing claims for unemployment insurance as of Jan. 17 was 4.78 million, the highest in the 42 years they've been keeping records. Starbucks, Time Warner, Home Depot, Pfizer: The AP's count is 125,000 layoffs since January began.

People are getting the mood of the age in their inboxes. How many emails have you received the past few months from acquaintances telling you in brisk words meant to communicate optimism and forestall pity that "it's been a great ride," but they're "moving on" to "explore new opportunities"? And there's a broad feeling one detects, a kind of psychic sense, some sort of knowledge in the collective unconscious, that we lived through magic times the past half-century, and now the nonmagic time has begun, and it won't be over next summer. That's not the way it will work. It will last a while.

There's a sense among many, certainly here in New York, that we somehow had it too good too long, a feeling part Puritan, part mystic and obscurely guilty, that some bill is coming due. Hard to get a stimulus package that addresses that. (The guilt was part of the power of Blago. He's the last American who doesn't feel guilt. He thinks something is moral because he did it. He's like a good-natured Idi Amin, up there yammering about how he's a poor boy who only wanted to protect the people of Chicago from the flu. You wish you could believe it! You wish he really were what he is in his imagination, a hero battling dark forces against the odds.)

I think there is an illness called Goldmansachs Head. I think it's in the DSM. When you have Goldmansachs Head, the party's never over. You take private planes to ask for bailout money, you entertain customers at high-end spas while your writers prep your testimony, you take and give huge bonuses as the company tanks. When you take the kids camping, you bring a private chef. Goldmansachs Head is Bernie Madoff complaining he's feeling cooped up in the penthouse. It is the delusion that the old days continue and the old ways prevail and you, Prince of the Abundance, can just keep rolling along. Here is how you know if someone has GSH: He has everything but a watch. He doesn't know what time it is.

I remember the father in the movie script of "Dr. Zhivago," inviting what's left of his family, huddled in rooms in what had been their mansion, picking up the stump of a stogie and inviting them to watch the lighting of "the last cigar in Moscow."

That's how the Democratic establishment in the House looks, not like people who are responding to a crisis, or even like people who are ignoring a crisis, but people who are using a crisis. Our hopeful, compelling new president shouldn't have gone with this bill. He made news this week by going to the House to meet with Republicans. He could have made history by listening to them.

A final point: In the time since his inauguration, Mr. Obama has been on every screen in the country, TV and computer, every day. He is never not on the screen. I know what his people are thinking: Put his image on the age. Imprint the era with his face. But it's already reaching saturation point. When the office is omnipresent, it is demystified. Constant exposure deflates the presidency, subtly robbing it of power and making it more common. I keep the television on a lot, and somewhere in the 1990s I realized that Bill Clinton was never not in my living room. He was always strolling onto the stage, pointing at things, laughing, talking. This is what the Obama people are doing, having the boss hog the screen. They should relax. The race is long.

As a matter of fact, they should focus on that: The race is long. Run seriously.

 

[RightField]

Tried during the Bush years. Didn't work out so well.

Yeah, actually it did and it's worked out well every other time too. There was great job creation up until the point that the meddling with the housing markets by the government finally collapsed and screwed the whole thing up.

 

[RightField]

I'm worried about the trade protectionism in the bill also. If it passes and other countries start closing their markets, we're all screwed.

• With the Davis-Bacon wage modifications
  
• Strengthening the unions (raising wages but destroying new job-creation)
  
• Protectionism (steel rider in bill for construction)

This is looking earily similar to the fuel thrown on the fire by FDR to deepen and extend the depression.

Something like a little over 50% of you wanted democratic leadership....you got it baby...and we'll all sink for it too.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Irezumi you may want to read this article:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/obama_and_the_times_get_half_t.html

so you can get the other half of the story that Obama missed (or may simply not understand).

While it's nice to know that some of that bonus will go to lower-level employees and not just the upper-tier execs who may or may not have waived it off, the fact that they're entitled by default to a fat bonus during a severe economic downturn doesn't endear my sympathy to the Wall Streeters. Most regular companies that normally do bonuses dismiss them when times are bad and you are lucky enough just to keep your job along with the requisite percentage salary increase come the following year. When companies show profits instead of losses, then you give out bonuses.

 

[unregistered]