Stimulus. Defined by Democrats as Global warming research, and digital tv coupons. As supported by one of our own.
Breaking news from the Wall Street Journal (Full Story here) on the trillion dollar stimulus bill:
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.
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.
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. As Peter Orszag, the President’s new budget director, told Congress a year ago, “even those [public works] that are ‘on the shelf’ generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy.”
Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment. Most urban transit systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess which party?
and…
This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living — or dead — Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, “We won the election. We wrote the bill.” So they did. Republicans should let them take all of the credit.
And guess who voted for this? Leader of the Blue Dog Democrats, Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.
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Comments
My brother-in-law just called. He is just tickled to death that this stimulus package passed! No, he wasn’t in favor of it, but he wanted it passed! He agrees with Sean Hannity, Bill, Rush and Fox News that if this stimulus package falls flat on its face that it’s the best thing that could happen for the rejuvenation of the Republican Party! He feels that if the loyal Republicans continue to vote against Obama, and get a few of those blue dog Democrats to go along and Obama’s ideas go down in flames, our Republican Party will be THE stronger party for it in 2010 and beyond.
Well, brother-in-law might be right. I’m just not comfortable with his feelings or his way of thinking. But he is a strong follower of Sean, Bill, Rush and Fox and they are the new spokespersons for conservative Republicans. Maybe they have the right idea here. Will just have to wait and see how this all plays out!
It’s better then what Republicans have been doing. They’ve been just standing around with the thumbs up their butts whining that the Dems aren’t letting them play in the sandbox. They need to grow up. The American people want our government to do something to fix the economy. If the Republicans are going to become the party of “No We Can’t!” then they’ve lost all hope of regaining power.
John, the problem is that Republicans didn’t tell Bawney Fwank and Chris Dodd and Tim Geithner “NO YOU CAN’T” as those turkeys oversaw (with colassal conflicts of interest) the very economic programs that collapsed. So you are right. They did stand around doing nothing.
herseth ought to be remembered for this atrocious pork-barrel vote. hopefully thune and johnson kill it.
Look at the Scoreboard, I Would Rather Be Fishing. You guys got it handed to you in November.
Now, I have to admit, Pelosi drives me nuts as a Dem. At least Obama made the effort yesterday, but Nancy just shut down debate.
It is funny to see Republicans becoming deficit hawks again.
Where were you when we were spening 12 billions a month in Iraq chasing weapons that only existed in Dick Cheney’s mind?
Enough blame to go around, ok guys?
John 7:33p
You’re suffering from “politician’s logic”.
We must do SOMETHING.
THIS is something.
We MUST do this.
This bill WILL pass in the Senate, with Senator Johnson’s vote but without Senator Thune’s. A few GOP Senator’s may vote for passage, although unanimous opposition from the House GOP will cause “leaners” to have serious second thoughts.
The Democrats and Obama own this monstrosity.
Considering 35% or less of the funds allocated will even be spent within the next 24 months, if the economy begins to recover during this period, the remaining funds will either be in the hands of the government instead of the private sector when it needs them for real growth, or will create inflationary pressure that could eliminate real ecomonic gains.
Fasten your seat belts, this could be a rough ride…
Get Real,
You’re right about plenty of blame to go around for the economic mess (although, we may disagree on the specifics). The GOP has a lot of work to do to overcome the stigma of the spending orgy that took place during their majority.
BOTH parties have been far too happy using the public trough to feed the their pet projects and favored consituencies.
Republicans are out of power mainly because they governed like Democrats. Under President Bush, we had an expansion of government that was larger than Clinton. Bush failed to veto any bloated budgets until his second term. The Republican led Congress spent money so fast we could not print it fast enough. Even Democrats claimed we needed to be fiscally responsible. Now, look at what Democrats are calling fiscally responsible. Republicans need to offer fiscally responsible alternatives. in 1994, the started a revolution. By 2006, they lost their way. Maybe they can find their way back to sanity.
When I read what the final vote was, I was pleased to see some Democrats voted no. I thought at least Stephanie voted the right way. Now I read she has no backbone and went along with the rest of the lemmings. Some blue dog.
duggersd
I too was suprised by her vote, particulary as she’s supposed to be leading the fiscally conservative “Blue Dogs”. She may find it difficult to lead when her followers turn the other way. I’m pretty sure the 11 Democrats that voted against the bill are all Blue Dogs.
A majority of Americans back the stimulus package. Check the numbers.
http://www.pollster.com/blog /economic_stimulus_and_the_many.php
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin is in the mainstream with this vote.
BO said no PORK! He lied, yes they have removed some, but this bill is sad indeed! Dig a little deeper and Frank is getting money for his bank. Gov Blog from Illinois I hear is named in it. The wording seems lame on the first stipulation and the second might have teeth, but is this an attempt to cut ties or just show??? This is part of the Trillion dollar questions.
For pete sakes, most people I bet do not get what it is all about anyway. I bet they have no clue what is in the Bill. Most likely they have no clue where the money is coming from and how in debt we are already!
As for the numbers I did not look at the link, but I heard the numbers are close anyway.
Talk to your schools, your mayors, your eco/devo directors in your communities, your local native american tribes and the wind farm on the hill. Even the Governor Ask them if they think that this stimulus bill is wasteful.
Sure, this is not a perfect bill. But what it will do to help South Dakota – outways the random ‘wasted’ spending that was also included. Every South Dakota school district will receive $$ spread out over 2009 and 2010. The State of SD will receive $180 Million to work to balance the budget. I can’t remember the complete breakdown – but it’s detailed in Wednesday’s Argus Leader.
Stimulus for all = no. Stimulus for South Dakota = Yes!
Having passed the House with unanimous opposition by the GOP plus 11 “Blue Dogs”. The bill WILL pass in the Senate but with serious second thoughts by any GOP “leaning” toward passage.
This bill, good or bad will be “owned” by the Democratic majority.
Maybe, now that the GOP is “in the wilderness” as a minority, enough of them will “grow a pair” and support candidates that have them that 2010 can provide some GOP gains. It won’t happen if the GOP is viewed by the public at large as “Tax & Spend Lite”.
Gee, SD is getting millions! Guess what, that is my money, my kids money, and my grandkids money that we are getting. It doesn’t come out of the sky. If the state does actually see this coming, just see how quick every little proposed cut will suddenly be demanding an increase from the trough. This is absolutely asinine. I hope that this stimulus falls flat on its face and the Dems can claim that “Yes, we can, or did.” It’s all theirs.
I too am disappointed in Stephanie’s vote. I had heard this morning that she was going to vote against it. It she comes back to run for gov or decides to run against Thune or take Johnson’s seat, I hope the people of SD remember this vote. Her blue dog status has turned black.
Yes springer, I too am concerned “that is my money, my kids money, and my grandkids money that we are getting”. But that’s the same thing my Democrat friends needled me on a daily basis over we Republicans doubling our national debt the past few years!
Springer, I am not in favor of this stimulus package, but I don’t want it to fall flat on it’s face. Yes, it may be better for our Republican party and Fox and friends if it does fail, but it won’t be better for the American people. We can’t spend like a bunch of drunken sailors or Democrats and then turn to the American people and say “we have the better ideas”. It just didn’t work did it. We Republicans have to turn our party around, and it turn we can turn American around.
We Republicans DO have better ideas and all of us know it. But we will never get that message out to the American people if the only spokesperson(s) for the Republican party is/are Sean Hannity, Rush, Bill and the rest of Fox News. It’s just like it will catch up to the Democrats if they continue to let Keith Olbermann and MSNBC be their spokesperson!
I remember turning on the TV back during the election and Obama was telling us he was going to do this and this and this to help American out of this mess so vote for him. Then we Republicans would come on and say almost nothing about what we would do. We spent most of out TV time telling everyone to vote against Obama because he is a Muslim,he is the anti-Christ, he pals with terrorists, he is going to take all of our guns away and his wife hates America! IT DIDN’T WORK! My fellow Republicans, we surely could of done better then that couldn’t of we?
Ripping the other side apart in order for us to look better has worked in politics for both sides for many years. But I don’t know if that is going to work anymore in this day and age. We might just have to say “look, the Democrats have a few good ideas, but we Republicans have better ones”. And then go on and show them why!
I don’t know. I guess I’m just getting to old and worn out. But I’m really getting sick of the “old ways” of doing things. I just don’t think our current approach is right for our Republican Party.
I’m sick of hearing the Dems state how they “spanked” the GOP in the Prez election. From the tallies from the populous vote, almost 1/2 of the nation didn’t vote for BHO. The only reason that BHO waltzed in was because of the aged Electoral college which was skewed by those who are benefiting from the proposed stimulous package now: the unemployed, those on food stamps, the tree huggers, unions and the rest of the lot which figures the only way they can survive is by BIGGER government, paid by employed individuals and our children. Ridiculous.
Well, I don’t know if the GOP got “spanked” or not. I know a couple of our national Republican leaders that were paying somebody to do that. So being “spanked” might be a bad choice of words!
Anyway, a good old fashion butt kicking did take place. From TIME: “the GOP got their butts kicked. GOP leaders off camera say yes it happened….House Republican leader John Boehner called the results a “wake-up call.”
We Republicans CAN learn a lot from this disaster. We really can. It really was a “wake-up call.” But the first thing we can’t do is say “it didn’t happen”.
As I said before, if Sean Hannity, Rush, Bill and FoxNews end up being the face of the Republican Party, we Republicans are in trouble! And if you don’t understand that, then this last election disaster wasn’t a “wake-up call”, it was TAPS! “For those of you that weren’t in the service: Bugle sounded at night as an order to extinguish all lights and also played at military funeral”.
In other words, if we Republicans didn’t learn from this last election, then “turn out the lights, the party is over”!
Darn, I forgot this quote from TIME in the above post.
“There was no sugar coating this one — the Republican Party got beat, and it got beat soundly.”
Yes, Reps lost. Yes, Dem’s won. We know that. But a mandate for O is incorrect. It was only slightly over half.
I too think the Reps botched the last election big time. When they call now to request money, I tell them no. Maybe they will figure out that most of the Reps did not like last election’s candidate or the way the race was conducted. McCain is a good guy, a nice guy, but not cut-throat enough to go up against the Dem’s lies and strategies. Yes, we need to strenthen our party. But I don’t agree with dumping Hannity et al.
Obama has a strategy that he is pursuing, and I don’t think it was ever exposed during the election and still is not apparent. He wants basically a communal world where all share and all live in harmony. Sorry, that’s has been the goal since the world was created. It just is not possible when there are hatefilled and crazies running some other nations. I just hope our country survives his inexpereince, ineptness, and most of all arrogance.
Springer said “But a mandate for O is incorrect” LOL Well, how soon we forget what VP Dick Cheney had to say when President Bush won n 2004:
“The result is now clear: a record voter turnout and a broad, nationwide victory,” Cheney said. “President Bush ran forthrightly on a clear agenda for this nation’s future and the nation responded by giving him a MANDATE.”
And the rest of us Republicans jumped on that bandwagon. We made sure that we repeated the word “mandate” every chance we got. So, how does the 2004 mandate compare with 2008 that wasn’t a mandate?
Nominee George W. Bush John Kerry
Electoral vote 286 251
Percentage popular vote 50.7% 48.3%
Barack Obama John McCain
Electoral vote 365 173
Percentage popular vote 52.9% 45.7%
Now please tell me again springer, why was President Bush’s election a mandate and Obama’s wasn’t? Or does it always depend on whose sister it is?
Well, they did kick our butts this past election.
To the victor goes the spoils or something like that.
But we will be back, stronger then ever. And I honestly believe that.
“We shall overcome”! LOL
I guess that’s our motto now!