Stimulate What?
Don’t answer that.
Seriously though, Tgirsch is defending the Obama stimulus plan, like a typical Democrat. But how in the hell can he defend this non-stimulating stimulus bill? This bill is nothing but pork.
- Over $142 Billion in Federal education funds: Nearly double the total outlays for the Dept. of Education in 2007 – making good on Reid-Pelosi-Obama education promises to the NEA.
- $87 Billion Medicaid bailout: Medicaid is funded by a formula that matches state spending levels with federal dollars. If we keep bailing states out, they will have every incentive to continue irresponsible spending. Fiscally responsible taxpayers in Indiana are now paying for fiscally irresponsible bureaucrats in Illinois.
- Expanded Medicaid coverage and SCHIP: Reid-Pelosi-Obama are enacting a nationalized health care policy with no debate. The government will soon be responsible for more health care spending than the private sector, i.e. socialized medicine.
- Green Jobs?: The myth of ‘green jobs’ merely means replacing one job lost, with a new job that fits the left’s agenda. It is a zero sum game. More than doubling spending, the stimulus also has over $35 billion for the Dept. of Energy. DOE’s current budget is $23.8 billion.
- Family Planning and birth control for children, immigrants and the wealthy, which could also be used as a backdoor to allow federal funding of abortions. How is this stimulus? **UPDATE: Nancy Pelosi agrees this is not stimulus and has removed it from the bill proving these measures are allergic to sunshine.**
- Redistribution: Refundable Tax Credits for people who don’t pay taxes.
- Pork Spending: Digital TV Coupons ($650 Million), Gov’t Cars ($600 Million), Nat’l Endowment for the Arts ($50 Million), Repairs to National Mall ($200 Million, including $21m for sod).
Tgirsch says that spending on infrastructure and government projects will create jobs. Is he serious? Name one other time in history when the federal government began public works programs to help the economy. Can you say New Deal? Did that work? Hell no it didn’t. It was a complete failure. Even FDR’s Treasury Secretary admitted that spending did not work.
These are the same people, along with President Bush, that told us that if we didn’t spend 700 billion on the banks, that the world would come to an end.
Now they are telling us we have to add another trillion dollars to the national debt. WHY? Please enlighten me. We had one quarter of negative growth and we are most likely in another one. Oh my God, we are in a recession! No we can’t have that. Unemployment is in the seven per cent range. Holy shit! The sky is falling.
This joke of a “stimulus” plan is the largest and most hastily pushed bill in history. We don’t need it folks. According to the Congressional Budget Office, only 52% of the thing will be spent by fiscal year 2010. Unbefreakinglievable! If you leave the economy alone, we will be growing on our own by then.
What irritates me more than anything about Tgirsch and his buddies, is that they actually think that these politicians, these central planners, can spend our money more efficiently than us. They actually believe that it makes more sense to take from individuals, pay bureaucrats, and allocate the confiscated wealth for the “common good”. I don’t guess these guys do a lot of wholesale shopping in their free time. Hell no, to them it makes more sense to always use a middle man.
Obama claims that he will create 4 million jobs with this piece of crap. That means it will cost $187,000 per job. Have we lost our freaking minds? Why don’t we just find these four million folks and give them cash? It would certainly make a whole hell of a lot more sense than spending nearly $200,000 on their unemployment. An Ivy League Education is cheaper than the Obama plan.
People get a clue. This is not an economic stimulus plan. This is not a job creation plan. This is a plan to secure Democratic power for decades. This is a transfer of power from the individual to the government. It baffles me that the libs can’t see this. Maybe they do actually, and are just okay with it. I don’t know, but the whole thing makes me sick. Sadly, being in a Parliamentary system now, there isn’t much we can do about it.
One more thing Tgirsch, about that nonsensical statistic you cited. From the WSJ:
The stimulus bill is also a time machine in the sense that it’s based on an old, and largely discredited, economic theory. As Harvard economist Robert Barro pointed out on these pages last Thursday, the “stimulus” claim is based on something called the Keynesian “multiplier,” which is that each $1 of spending the government “injects” into the economy yields 1.5 times that in greater output. There’s little evidence to support this theory, but you have to admire its beauty because it assumes the government can create wealth out of thin air. If it were true, the government should spend $10 trillion and we’d all live in paradise.
Amazing logic! Truly freaking amazing!
Yeah, it’s a real shame when a party goes about to create a permanent majority without crowing about it from every backwoods AM radio station in the country, ’cause we all know how that turns out.
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Posted at BCR:
What will OBAMA do with all those earmarks in the Stimulus Plan?
Filed under: General — Mickey at 8:27 pm on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 Edit This
Rember this?
Obama bans earmarks from economic package
Stimulus plan expected to cost about $775 billion
updated 2:18 p.m. CT, Tues., Jan. 6, 2009 function UpdateTimeStamp(pdt) { var n = document.getElementById(”udtD”); if(pdt != ” && n && window.DateTime) { var dt = new DateTime(); pdt = dt.T2D(pdt); if(dt.GetTZ(pdt)) {n.innerHTML = dt.D2S(pdt,((”.toLowerCase()==’false’)?false:true));} } } UpdateTimeStamp(’633668699075430000?);
WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to bar lawmakers’ pet projects from his massive economic stimulus plan and to bring unprecedented accountability to federal spending.
Even as he promised to fight waste and to make tough budgetary decisions, however, Obama warned that the nation could face trillion-dollar deficits for years to come. Eight years ago the federal budget ran a surplus, and the deficit on Sept. 30 was about $455 billion.
Well President Obama… we are waiting….
http://bluecollarrepublican.com/blog/?p=740
What irritates me more than anything about Tgirsch and his buddies, is that they actually think that these politicians, these central planners, can spend our money more efficiently than us.
Exactly.
But why? How does that thinking happen?
Can you say New Deal? Did that work? Hell no it didn’t. It was a complete failure.
You saying that’s so doesn’t make it so. The New Deal was working remarkably well until FDR started unwisely listening to his critics and tried to balance the budget prematurely, in 1937-38.
Look, I have reservations about several aspects of the proposed stimulus package. But you have yet to make a compelling case for your point of view, which seems to be that we should fiddle while Rome burns, err, do nothing and let the economy collapse.
And as for your OpinionJournal cite, you still haven’t explained why government spending is a zero sum game but tax cuts magically aren’t. If wealth can be created, then there’s no reason that the government is incapable of creating it. If it can’t be created, then the private sector can’t help us, either. If the private sector were making investments that put people to work, then there would be no need for government stimulus. But they’re not, and quite the opposite — they’re cutting back because of lack of demand. Many of these companies could afford to invest if they wanted to, they’re simply declining to do so because there’s no incentive to.
And that’s the direct question that you still haven’t answered, even though I’ve asked it five freaking times — how are tax cuts for business supposed to help here? If companies can already afford to invest but are choosing not to because there aren’t any customers, then what are they going to do with the extra money that will stimulate the economy? What? What’s their incentive to do so? Splain it to me! Pretty please, with sugar on top!
At least with unemployment benefits, tax cuts (and, yes, refundable tax credits) aimed at lower incomes, you’re putting extra money into the hands of the very people who are most likely to spend it, and consumer spending does stimulate the economy.
Glen:
Have some more reading material. You should really browse the whole site, as there’s actual, substantive debate concerning what works and what doesn’t, and what the pros and cons are, done by qualified experts, as opposed to our armchair quarterbacking.
Oh, and as for the suggestion that the New Deal was counterproductive? Not so much.
You copied that from Paul Krugman didn’t you? Be honest.
Tgrisch, most people believe the economy would have recoverd on it’s own much faster without government meddling. It always did before.
“qualified experts”?????????
HAHAHA
Heh, Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, Mary Schapiro, Tim Geinther, and Bernie Madoff are all “qualified experts” They are are all cut from the same cloth.
Heck, Madoff is practically the architect of our so-called “financial system”.
Bernanke wants to prop up US treasuries by printing magic funny money. Once that happens, its a complete circle jerk. Lights out. What we call “full faith and credit” will be residing somewhere between whale turds and Davy Jones’ locker.
Do we really want to trust these “experts”.
They should be in prison.
Speaking of prison, weren’t some of Hitler’s propaganda people tried for war crimes?
NY Times, are you listening?
On the good side, the mafia thugs at CitiBank didn’t get their fancy jet. Not quite prison, but a step in the right direction.
You copied that from Paul Krugman didn’t you? Be honest.
I’ve heard Krugman say it, sure, but he’s not the only one who says it. And in case you didn’t notice, I provided another link on the matter, guaranteed Krugman free for your safety.