WHAT IS STIMULATING ABOUT THIS STIMULUS?

Article by Jordan M. Iwanyszyn, with some info from an e-mail by Alan Rader

As many of us know, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (otherwise known in the U.S. House of Representatives as H.R. 1) passed the House by a 244-188 vote. It is now being debated in the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada wants to get a bill to Obama by Presidents Day.

This bill is otherwise known to most as the "Economic Stimulus" package. Many don't know just what is in this proposal, but it is now starting to get around, thanks to the New Media in the Internet and on talk radio. Following is a sampling of what was originally in the bill before the Senate cut about $100 billion in pork, to cut the bill down to a $827 billion piglet. It had gotten as high as a $920 billion bill. Here were some of the numbers before the cuts were made (the notes in parentheses were little pointers from a friend of mine, Alan Rader):

$160 million- paid volunteers for national community service program (what is a paid volunteer?!)
$1.7 million- for national parks
$7.6 billion for rural community advancement
$850 million for Amtrak
$87 million for a polar ice breaking ship (I thought the polar ice caps melted already!)
$500 million for the endowment for the arts
$600 billion for university building projects (I sincerely hope I wrote that one down wrong!)
$1.2 billion youth summer jobs for people 24 years old & younger
$4.2 billion for neighborhood building projects
$650 million for digital television upgrades
$34 million for department of commerce building renovation (the building must’ve burned down!)
$44 million for department of agriculture building renovation (did that one burn, too?)
$88 million for the department of health services to move to another location (quick, buy stock in moving companies!)
$600 million to convert federal cars to hybrids (how long will it take for that to pay off in fuel savings? I need a calculator!)
$2 billion for renewable energy research
$6.2 billion for weatherization assistance (that’s a lot of duct tape & plastic)
$3.5 billion for energy efficiency block grants
$300 million for energy efficiency appliance rebates
$1.5 billion in green energy loan guarantees
$79 billion for state fiscal recovery fund (state bail-outs)

A lot of these are good things, but where in the U.S. Constitution does it provide for these expenditures from the federal treasury, and tell me how we get 3 million jobs out of this bill (that is what this is supposedly geared towards). And why on Earth is our federal government bailing out individual states? Our founding fathers set up a system of federalism for a reason. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BAIL OUT STATES! More of these items can be found in the link on the bottom of the page.

The Feds want to buy a polar ice-breaking ship. They want to throw money at Amtrak and weatherization assistance. How do these proposals create long-term meaningful jobs? AND HOW ON EARTH IS PROVIDING $500M FOR THE ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS STIMULATING FOR THE ECONOMY!?!?! Holy smokes! I guess I'm just arts-impaired. I believe the arts are a great thing to take in. They help to make a well-rounded individual, but for pete's sake, how on Earth is throwing taxpayer dollars at them during a strong recession going to get us back on track and get suffering people back into a growing economy?

Some in Washington and elsewhere complained about how much had to be cut from the bill. Well, what I say is...CUT MORE! This bill is nothing but pork! You could make a breakfast with all the pork for the whole community! All that is missing is the eggs and hash-browns. Scrap this thing and start from scratch! I don't want to see a little scalpel pick away at the proposal...GET A DOGGONE CHAINSAW!

Some in Washington say we don't have a choice but to pass this bill, or our economy will collapse. Obama says our economy "may never recover". House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a huge gaffe recently by saying the U.S. economy loses 500 million workers a month (there are only just over 300M people living in the U.S.) YES WE DO HAVE A CHOICE! Let's shred this proposal and actually put through something that CREATES JOBS! If we are going to drive ourselves nearly $1 TRILLION further into the deficit, I would rather see it in cuts for the corporate income, dividend and personal income tax rates, along with any other tax cuts that would put more money back into the pockets of the people who earned it. This would foster investment, innovation and entrepreneurship. THIS IS WHAT OUR ECONOMY NEEDS NOW! THIS WOULD PROVIDE JOBS, AND WOULD HELP PULL US OUT OF THIS ECONOMIC DOWNTURN! This would create a more permanent stimulus, and actually stimulate the economy.


FULL TEXT OF THE BILL FROM OPENCONGRESS.ORG
More on the "stimulus" from OpenCongress