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| Home Front Economy |
| A Bleak Day |
| 2009-01-30 |
| I love this. The new kind of politics of hope. Eight hours of debate in the HR to pass a bill spending $820 billion, or roughly $102 billion per hour of debate. Only ten per cent of the "stimulus" to be spent on 2009. Close to half goes to entities that sponsor or employ or both members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions, or other Democrat-controlled unions. This bill is sent to Congress after Obama has been in office for seven days. It is 680 pages long. According to my calculations, not one member of Congress read the entire bill before this vote. Obviously, it would have been impossible, given his schedule, for President Obama to have read the entire bill. For the amount spent we could have given every unemployed person in the United States roughly $75,000. We could give every person who had lost a job and is now passing through long-term unemployment of six months or longer roughly $300,000. There has been pork barrel politics since there has been politics. The scale of this pork is beyond what had ever been imagined before -- and no one can be sure it will actually do much stimulation. Further, no one can be sure that we are not already at the trough/inflection point of the recession such that this money will be spent mostly after the recovery is well under way. How long until the debt incurred under this program is so immense that it causes a downgrade in the sovereign debt of the USA? What happens to us then? This has been a punch in the solar plexus to the kind of responsible, far-seeing, mature government processes that are needed to protect America. This is more than the pork barrel. This is a coup for the constituencies of the party in power and against the idea of a responsible government itself. A bleak day. Unfortunately, it is only the latest in a long series of such days stretching across decades of rule by both parties, to the point where truly responsible government is only a distant echo of our forgotten ancestors. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #5 OP, get out of my head. I've been saying what you said for years, and people look at me like I am crazy. |
| Posted by: Marilyn Elmeger8261 2009-01-30 22:54 |
| #4 There's one easy, fast way to put a stop to all of the sh$$ in Washington. All you have to do is take about 250 congresscritters and 60-70 senators - from both parties - and hang 'em on the Mall. Do the same thing to a few dozen top "civil servants" and all the appointed heads of cabinet-level offices. Threaten to do it again if things don't improve DRASTICALLY. Then follow through. You may have to do it twice, but you won't have to do it three times. Of course, you've got to have the POWER to do it, or it's all for nothing. You also have to have the integrity to actually do ONLY what has to be done, and not start being power-hungry yourself. That limits the number of people you can turn to to do the job. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-01-30 21:14 |
| #3 Those who live in hope usually end up dying in shit. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2009-01-30 12:56 |
| #2 How long until the debt incurred under this program is so immense that it causes a downgrade in the sovereign debt of the USA? What happens to us then? I don't think they'll quit spending money like drunken sailors until they do downgrade our debt rating. This stimulus contains every democrat pork dream for the last 30 years. We're going to have to run THEM broke before this stops, mark my words. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2009-01-30 12:16 |
| #1 The described situation is the result of decades of irresponsible government & private financing, not just this incident. Congress never reads the bills it passes, this is not new. I very much doubt that the sovereign debt of the USA, as it stands today, can ever be paid back. The country's credit is now at the mercy of foreign lenders. At the moment they are all worse off than the US. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-01-30 10:42 |