By SHEILAH PEPPER
The Gazette Staff
This paper will be at the printer as the U.S. Senate votes on the so-called "stimulus" bill. As I write, it looks like three Republican senators, who worked on the compromise version (over the bill the House previously passed) will vote with the Democrats. They're calling the few cuts "savings." The House handed the Senate $820 billion. The Senate is contemplating $827 billion. Only in Washington would that be called "savings."
Those on the right are calling the bill Porkulus Maximus. Indeed, it is laden with pork. Items for literally every Democrat special interest group are included. I have a list of at least 50 outrageous spending programs in the bill. I don't have space to list all of them, but here are just a few examples:
· $1 billion to Amtrak which has shown a profit for 40 years
· $2 billion is child care subsidies
· $400 million to research global warming
· $650 million to help consumers with old TV sets convert to digital
· $20 billion for an expanded food stamp program. (Did you know that the food stamp bureaucrats often ADVERTISE for participants?)
· $87 billion in Medicaid funds to the states
· $50 billion to the National Endowment for the Arts (How does this create jobs?)
· $380 million to fund a nutrition program for low-income women and children. (Here come the Food Police)
· $4 billion in job-training programs for "youths" up to age 24.
· $4.2 billion for neighborhood "stabilization" programs. (Saul Alinsky wrote a book about that!)
· $600M to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrid (No job creation there)
· $1.7 billion for the National Parks System
· $2.4 billion for "carbon capture" demonstration projects.
· $80 billion to spendthrift states. (No incentive there to get state budgets under control)
This is just a small slice of this mess. The bill is 500 pages long. The cost, over time with interest, will be $1.17 trillion
The Republican alternative is quite brief: Cut corporate our corporate tax rates (the highest in the world), cut capital gains to get investors off the sidelines, give home buyers a healthy tax credit, and do some real infrastructure spending. (e.g. roads, bridges, ports and airports.)
I'm not a financial person and my training in economics is limited. My instincts plus information I was receiving indicated that this bill would do little to alleviate our current woes. I called an old friend of my husband who has expertise in finance and asked his opinion of the bill. His answer was "Its nuts. It won't create jobs."
No infrastructure spending will kick in until 2011. Plus, almost 60 percent of recent lost jobs are related to information industries. These are not people who will be able to drive road graders and bulldozers!
Meanwhile, the mainstream press, which is poorly equipped to opine on economic issues, played a distraction game, bemoaning banker's bonuses, fancy motivation junkets and purchases of corporate jets.
Whether Citibank has a new luxury jet or not will not make one bit of difference in my life or yours. Actually, the Wall Street CEOs are pikers. They are rank amateurs when it comes to spending compared to the Congress of the United States.
By the time this is printed you will know the outcome of the dance in the Senate. I'm not optimistic. I can't see anything, short of a massive grassroots revolt, that will slow the Democrats down. The pigs are at the trough, big time. Once in place, these programs cannot be stopped.
Meanwhile, the current cover of Newsweek magazine joyfully states "We are all Socialists now!"
Copyright©2009SheilahPepper
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