WSJ: You won't believe what's in that stimulus bill.

[TheStudent]

We already had in recent history two gigantic bonanzas of government spending that government was totally incompetent at being accountable for.

After Katarina and Iraq, I think we should conclude that the govt spends money like a drunken sailor on his first day in port : throwing dollar bills to every whore, crook and two bit hustler.

If you divide up the cost of Katrina by every man woman and child in New Orleans, you could gift a free median US home to everyone and have enough left over to go shopping for furniture at Ikea.

The amount of money pissed away in Iraq was colossal and will be feeding several generations of Iraqi contractors.

Given the govt track record of handling big money giveaways, this stimulus package is going to be a giant pissing away of present and future taxpayer dollars.

Although we all have history books and therefore won't repeat the stupidity of FDR stimulus plans in the 1930s (like pouring milk into the ditch or killing cows to support agriculture prices) .... I have full confidence that the govt will invent new forms of stupidity to piss taxpayer dollars away.

 

[Landis82]

Quote from JBfinancial:

Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There's another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

Just to put this in some sort of perspective ( to address all of the claims that the stimulus package doesn't spend enough on transportation infrastructure ) it is interesting to note that the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee's own chairman, James Oberstar is asking for $85 billion in transportation infrastructure spending.

http://transportation.house.gov/Med...entForDemSteeringandPolicyCommHrng_010709.pdf

 

[TheStudent]

Quote from Debaser82:

Fair enough.

So you feel US infrastructure is triple A worthy or should we ask Moodys that?

dood ... Moody's is a credit rating agency .... they rate the ability of borrowers to repay their creditors

US infrastructure is long pieces of pressed bitumen with white stripes painted on them.

Oh wait, did you mean the state and local governments who are supposed to keep our pieces of bitumen and concrete in working order? those clowns? They are fukked and will be handing out funny money IOUs to pay people soon.

 

[skylr33]

All the brainwashed Obama douche bag cult followers will have to provide explanations to their kids/grand kids as to why they will be stuck paying 50 - 60% of everything they make in federal taxes, in order to pay for these idiotic tarp/bailout packages that will not solve the economic problems in America.
I absolutely love watching this, as Obama and the rest of the moron Democrats will not fix the economy. Gee, then who will they place the blame on? The Democrats have majorities in the house and senate. Who can Nancy Pelosi, fudge packer Barney Frank, and the rest of the mental giants in congress point the finger at? Can you say, "one term presidency"? The quota hire, white house experiment will fail miserably, and they won't be able to blame it on Bush and the republicans. lol

 

[tmarket]

Quote from JBfinancial:

[Review & Outlook] AP

We've looked it over, and even we can't quite believe it. There's $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There's even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html?mod=djemEditorialPage#printMode [/B]

What is so hard to believe?
40% of the stimulus bill is in tax breaks, which is what has broad bipartisan support - to give the money back to the tax payer to spend as needed.

$1 billion for Amtrak - How do you propose spending money on rail infrastructure without investing in Amtrak, the only national rail mass transit? You can argue about how to implement it, but you can't ignore it.

$400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. -How do you propose to develop green energy jobs without research into global warming and carbon capture?

$650 million on digital TV conversion - $80 per family to upgrade their analog TVs so that their equipment don't become immediately obsolete is hardly a waste. You want to mandate and change a broadcast TV standard that has been around for 80 years, you need to pay something to upgrade the infrastructure - it just doesn't happen by itself.

 

[ByLoSellHi]

Hey whiners - STFU.

We got screwed by your butt buddy, Dumbya (we'll be paying 3 trillion for, among other things, those meals never served to the troops, $7.50 gasoline for humvees shipped into Iraq from Dubai by Halliburton, and American Eagle ice carving sculptures placed in desert tents at mealtime by KBR in Iraq and Kuwait for a long time), and now just bend over and take it like a man from Obama-Mama.

If you really want to do something, start at the local level and throw out every politician that won't commit to cutting government workers, building, and other expenses at the local level, then work your way up to the county and state levels.

Eventually, the movement will gain steam.

The federal government is only 1/2 the problem. Go look at your property tax bills, etc.

 

[BSAM]

Quote from skylr33:

All the brainwashed Obama douche bag cult followers will have to provide explanations to their kids/grand kids as to why they will be stuck paying 50 - 60% of everything they make in federal taxes, in order to pay for these idiotic tarp/bailout packages that will not solve the economic problems in America.
I absolutely love watching this, as Obama and the rest of the moron Democrats will not fix the economy. Gee, then who will they place the blame on? The Democrats have majorities in the house and senate. Who can Nancy Pelosi, fudge packer Barney Frank, and the rest of the mental giants in congress point the finger at? Can you say, "one term presidency"? The quota hire, white house experiment will fail miserably, and they won't be able to blame it on Bush and the republicans. lol

Yo Sky---

You're a certified genius, right? (LOL)

If I walked up to you and handed you a bag of shit, what would it be when you got through with it?

That's right brainy boy...it would still be a bag of shit.

Little George Bush bankrupted the United States.

Obama probably isn't the right person to be in the Oval office, but in this past election, Ozzy could have won if he could have gotten onto the ballot as the Democrat.

Surely, you didn't think that lame ass John McCain and his sidekick were going to win after 8 years of the biggest dumbass to ever occupy the Oval office; or did you???

 

[ers811]

Quote from ByLoSellHi:

We got screwed by your butt buddy, Dumbya...

Nice talking points. He is guilty.... of letting decades old democrats' policies FESTER while sitting on his hands and getting blamed for it. Carter and Clinton began the policies that led to decades of irresponsible government meddling in demand (i.e. trying to play God with the forces of a free market). By removing all risk to banks and forcing un-natural demand in the market, they can screw everything up then POINT the finger at the very markets that would work without them. Hey, the scam worked.

 

[skylr33]

Quote from Trvlwanderer:

Nice Red Herring. What does that have to do with what is in the bill?

Keep clinging to Hope and Change....a good slogan will make everything better.

Exactly!!! To ignorant ones like that Obama "the great" can do no wrong, no matter how much he and the idiot democrats fuck it all up. Like I said, they won't have Bush and republicans to blame for it. All they are bailing out are their special interest groups, and really provide nothing to get the economy going again.
Oh, and btw, what's going to happen when another terrorist attack occurs in our country? You know it's going to happen, especially when you have the weakling political party on national defense running the show. But Obama will take care of those terrorists that don't end up killing themselves. He'll provide them with automatic U.S. citizenship, a gov't pension, and free health care, courtesy of the taxpayers.

 

[RacerXXXXX]

Quote from ByLoSellHi:

Hey whiners - STFU.

We got screwed by your butt buddy, Dumbya (we'll be paying 3 trillion for, among other things, those meals never served to the troops, $7.50 gasoline for humvees shipped into Iraq from Dubai by Halliburton, and American Eagle ice carving sculptures placed in desert tents at mealtime by KBR in Iraq and Kuwait for a long time), and now just bend over and take it like a man from Obama-Mama.

If you really want to do something, start at the local level and throw out every politician that won't commit to cutting government workers, building, and other expenses at the local level, then work your way up to the county and state levels.

Eventually, the movement will gain steam.

The federal government is only 1/2 the problem. Go look at your property tax bills, etc.

What are you whining about? Are you saying that adding another trillion in wasteful spending on top of the above mentioned spending is OK?