So far I like President Barack Obama and I have a lot of hope for his administration. Are we expecting too much from the Government? Are we counting on miracles from President Obama? I like this quote from Dave Ramsey about President Obama, “He’s your president, not your savior“.
By criticizing the plan I might look anti-energy, anti-education, anti-health care and anti-jobs but I assure you I am not. I’m just not sure we need to keep the knee-jerk actions of throwing good money at a bad problem. Honestly, if we do get the 3 million new jobs over the next few years like Obama says, what’s the cost? Three million jobs for close to a trillion dollars? Is anyone doing the math here?
2008 Stimulus Plan: Early last year congress passed a $152 billion stimulus plan to jolt our sluggish economy. This economic-growth package, the 2008 Tax Rebates and Economic Stimulus Plan, gave 130 million U.S. families and individuals tax rebate checks from the Internal Revenue Service. The result: Almost nothing!
Banking Industry Bailout: Then we see Congress and President George W. Bush hand out $700 billion for a banking industry bailout. The Result: Bank abuse in the Billions including lavish parties and huge bonuses to top executives.
Auto Industry Bailout: Lets not forget about taxpayers flipping the bill for a $15 billion auto industry bailout. All that so-called loan achieved is some temporary relief to keep one or more of the big three out of bankruptcy. Now they need more cash!
2009 $819 Billion Economic Stimulus: People all over the world are struggling and need financial assistance. Is a $819 billion economic stimulus package really going to help? Look at the track record I just outlined above. Blindly throwing trillions of dollars around hardly seems like an intelligent solution. President Barack Obama’s stimulus is bigger than the Pentagon’s entire budget and more than the United States has spent on the war in Iraq.
You know, I just have to say one more thing. The Republicans really blew it by acting like stereotype Republicans and running the Country into
the ground. Now they have lost the entire government to the Democrats. So what do the Democrats do? It looks like they are going to blow it
now by acting like stereotype Democrats with high spending and big government. And oh is this expensive and big. Look at some of the numbers
going around:
- $8.4 billion for clean drinking water.
- $30 billion for highway construction
- $13.1 billion for other forms of transportation, including mass transit
- $89 billion for Medicaid, the health-insurance plan for the poor
- $13.3 billion of health-insurance assistance for the unemployed
- $38 billion in emergency and extended unemployment
- $188 billion in tax reductions
- $20 billion for direct spending on school facilities
- $20 billion to computerize health records
- $79 billion to help stabilize state budgets, beyond the allocations for things like infrastructure, Medicaid and schools.
- $87 million for a single icebreaker ship to be used in the Arctic
- $150 million for producers of livestock, honey bees and farm-raised fish.
- $20 million for fish barriers.
- $430 million for the SBA to use toward its lending programs
- $335 million for programs that help prevent sexually transmitted disease
- $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
- $70 million for a supercomputer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- $75 million for smoking-cessation programs.
Has so many hands ever been greased so quickly in the United State’s history? I sure hope those idiots in Washington know what they’re doing
because America is going to be in debt for generations.
The Wall Street Journal House Passes Stimulus Package
The Wall Street Journal The Economic Stimulus Bill: What’s In It For You?
Salt Lake Tribune Stimulus bill – On the whole, it makes sense
FOXNews.com Senate Republicans Warn Stimulus Rebates Could Pay Illegal Immigrants
NYTimes.com Stimulus Bill Includes $50 Million for the Arts
FoxNews.com Obama Stimulus Package Really Socialism?
MSNBC.com An all-American auto industry bailout?
MSNBC.com Stimulus plan Details
KansasCity.com A stimulus that does not stimulate
Tags: It's Just Money, Politics
Hey Brian,
I understand your frustration on some of the ’stupid’ spending. Most of the complaints I have are when they neglect health care and kids. This includes the fact that the government should look into natural health preventive care rather than BS chemical research to push out drugs that do not get to the root of the issue but, only elevate a symptom & cause more side effects leading to more medical bills, and fill the deep pocket of a few…. This I could go on & on about but, I’ll move on.
The schools do need a drastic change & it will take money to fix them. Part of the schools problems are lazy parents & teachers (facility, admin..). Let parents deal with the child’s behavioral problems, we don’t need a high paid special teacher or physiologist to correct the problem (or prescribe drugs). Cut out some of the whimpy political correctness & lets get schools back to teaching & parents back to raising children. Parents should be teaching kids about sexually transmitted disease. I find it hard to believe that the government needs to educate people about this. Hell, throw smoking in there also.
The clean drinking water money will not correct the problem. The government is the one that allowed fluoride to be added in the 1st place. Now we have enough people on toxic prescription drugs that the water system is like drinking from a party glass at a rave (you will get a mixture of meds, you just don’t know what kind or how much).
I will not get started on medicaid. Most of the programs ran by the government for ‘health & well being’ are so abused. I have several regulations they should put on that system to cut spending. They would not seem to be politically correct so, I won’t list them. LOL!
None of these problems started when Obama took office. Like you said they have been coming for YEARS! We the people have just let things slide when it comes to our elected officials & now we are paying the price. I think people need to start taking responsibility for their choices. Stop sitting on their fat asses blaming everyone else – if you don’t like things the way they are then you need to speak up.
Ok, I will leave it there.
Sheryl Lochs last blog post..Looking for Health Book Summeries
Well said Sheryl, we agree on this one. I guess I would be totally for the plan if we had a decent track record but the Government is the absolute worst money managers on the planet. To the point that if they were an actual business they would have been out of business long ago and many would be sitting in jail.
If they’re going to give the money out anyway why not give it directly to the people? It didn’t work the first time but at least a bunch of low-life politicians, campaign contributors, lobbyists and big business won’t get another one over on the taxpayer. At least that way much of the money will find it’s way into the economy. I mean, look at the greedy banks!
The problem is we are sitting here waiting for the politicians to fix everything and they’re the idiots that broke it in the first place.
The solution is to buckle down, save what we can and ride this thing out the best we can. Friends and family should help each other. Neighbors can all pitch in and work together for a change. Eventually things will get better and we’ll all be stronger for it. I know that sounds so cliche’ but everything is temporary and so is this global recession. Let the idiots in Washington keep playing with it and it will turn into a full out depression.
I like Obamas plans but I see where you are coming from when you start doing the maths, I think private health insurance should be extended out to everyone though, every American should have decent access to health care if needed in this day and age, if other countries can do it affordably and successfully why can’t we.