Obama’s Porkulus To Be Served Up Today
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009President Obama will sign into law the Porkulus bill passed by Congressional Democrats in Denver today. Depending on which day of the week it is, this bill will cost taxpayers between $787 billion and $819 billion, and is supposed to jump start the economic recovery. Color me skeptical.
Democrats have stuffed the bill with billions of dollars of pork projects for their own constituants under the guise of creating jobs. Examples include $350 million for child care on military bases and $335 million to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Under different circumstances, we could have a healthy debate about these issues, but this bill was meant to stimulate the economy, not provide money for programs which fit into the liberal socialist agenda. Nancy Pelosi tried to insert $200 million dollars for birth control into this stimulus. When called on it by ABC News, this is what she said:
When ABC’s George Stephanopolous asked Pelosi to explain how birth control helps the economy, here’s what the speaker said: “The family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now, and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those — one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”
That’s right — she tried to tell the American People that funding contraceptives and birth control counseling would stimulate the economy, and she did so with a straight face. Yet more proof that the liberals in Congress and the White House care less about the economy and more about their socialist agenda.
More than anything else, the beginning of Mr. Obama’s Administration has been about the infiltration of the federal gavernment into the private sector for purposes of extending government control over the economy. Think about it; Obama has gladly given billions of dollars to the auto industtry, the banking industry, and the mortgage industry. All he asks for in return is to be able to tell these businesses how to operate and how much they can pay their employees. Sounds like nationization to me.
Newsweek, for once, was right. We’re all socialists now.
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February 18th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Wait a minute, Nick!
Who was president when billions were given to the auto, banking and mortgage industries?
I seem to recall that was George W. Bush.
Obama has been in office for less than a month and he just got his first economic proposal through Congress just a few days ago – and it contained the biggest tax cut in history…. and every Republican voted against it!!
I am hopeful that the stimulus package – and yes, stimulus = government spending – will put the country back on track. But we still have a huge mess to clean up from the grossly irresponsible policies of Bush and the Republicans. It is going to take a good long while to clean this mess up and pretending that Obama somehow created the mess that he found on Day 1 is really not fair.
February 19th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
The reason the Republicans voted against this “stimulus” bill was because of all of the non-stimulus provisions that the Democrats filled it with. Can you please tell me how spending money on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases stimulates the economy or creates jobs? Hell, most of the Democrats didn’t even read the bill before they voted to pass it.
With a single stroke of a pen, Obama has tripled the national debt, and he isn’t done spending taxpayer money yet. Look for more taxpayer money to be handed over to people who have defaulted on mortgages they knew they couldn’t afford. All this guy knows how to do is spend other people’s money.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:21 am
First, when the government spends money, it almost always creates or sustains jobs as a matter of course. If the government spends money on a program to prevent the spread of STDs, then health contractors benefit. Likewise, the state benefits if the program is successful because it then has to spend less money in the future taking care of sick people with STDs.
But let’s pretend that it’s not really stimulus just for a moment. I’m not even sure that particular provision was still in the final bill. The Republicans put together a long list of projects in the bill that they claimed were not stimulus. But even if you conced that all the spending they object to was not stimulus, it still only comes up to less than 3 percent of the total bill.
So that means that 97 percent of the bill IS stimulus and/or tax cuts. Yes, TAX CUTS. The bill that Obama just signed is THE LARGEST TAX CUT IN HISTORY!!!! And every single Republican in the House voted against it.
The biggest tax cut in history AND 97 percent of the spending they could find no fault with and it STILL wasn’t good enough for them.
It was clear that the Republicans were intent on voting against the bill regardless of what Obama did.
Also, Obama did not triple the national debt with the stimulus bill. First, I think you are confusing the national debt (cululative total) with the national deficit (annual). But if the stimulus works as planned and creates jobs and revives the economy, it will be money well spent, will actually give us something to show for it with improved infrastructure, and will eventually pay for itself with growth in the economy.