Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Stimulus Con

I find it hard to believe that the American public are not furiously complaining to their so-called representatives in Washington about the pork-laden stimulus bill. If the situation is dire and calls for emergency action why are politicians playing games with the bill? Why is the majority of the money not going to be spent until after this year?

On Monday night, the Congressional Budget Office sent out a full analysis of the House stimulus bill — elaborating on the partial number-crunching that were disseminated last week by Republican Hill sources. The new report elaborates on what the first one illuminated: the vaunted infrastructure spending will take years and years and years to kick in. Just 7 percent of the total $800 billion-plus stimulus funding would enter the economy by the end of this year.

In fact, the bill seems to have now passed the one trillion dollar mark. No doubt largely due to pork projects like this which have no bearing on saving the economy- $75 million for stopping smoking programs. Which is going to stimulate the economy how?

It seems to me that the stimulus package is the biggest and most expensive con job ever pulled on the American people- and the US economy will be in worse shape in years to come because of it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's that Americans don't care, I think it's that Americans think opposing it is hopeless.

Look at what happened with the last 700 Billion dollar bailout bill. Over 60% of the country opposed it. Congress' phones were ringing off the hook with opposition phone calls.

They voted it down the first time...then they played silly games for a week or so, reworded it in insubstantial ways without changing the substance, and passed it anyway.

Many Americans have simply given up on keeping congress in check. They'll do what they want anyway...and they'll be re-elected next time because the system is biased toward incumbents and, even if it weren't, what are the odds that the new guy would be any better?

It's not about stimulus or the economy, Money is power and that's what it's all about. Power corrupts and congress has too much of it. Unfortunately, at this point, I think until it becomes time to start shooting the bastards, I really don't think there's much we can do about it.

We are beyond the point of no return in my humble opinion. Our society is destined to failure just as the Ancient Greeks, the Romans, The Babylonians, The Egyptians, The British Empire, The French Empire and every other great society of history.

We're on the downward slope and it's just a matter of time.

And pain.