The "Read the Stimulus" website is an online tool designed to shine some light on the Congressional Prokfest.
Is spending money the solution to our problems?
Transition policy experts talk about President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan -- why it's necessary and how it will work:
Dan Mitchell has a video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explaining the folly of Barack Obama’s stimulus plan:
In Summary:
Government cannot create jobs. It can only shift jobs from one part of the economy to the other.
Government can spend only what it has taxed or borrowed away from the public, it creates no new demand but merely redirects it. And getting money from Uncle Sam doesn't necessarily give anyone the incentive to work more, produce more or earn more income.
According to analysts, only 5 percent of the $819 billion measure will go towards highway, mass transit, and rail projects:
Stimulus, Illustrated - Part II
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on the new “savior-based economy”:
Timeline:
January 28th, 2009 - The House passed the $819 billion economic stimulus bill with no Republican support. The measure passed 244 to 188, with 11 Democrats and 177 Republicans voting against it. Only 12% of the bill has any actual stimulus value, and it comes too slowly to help. The rest is filled mostly with historical Democratic spending priorities for government like family planning, education spending, and poverty programs, which should have been handled through normal appropriations and not emergency economic stimulus spending, which it clearly is not.
February 9th, 2009 - The Stimulus cloture invoked a 61-36 vote, advancing toward passage in the Senate. Only three Republicans voted with Democratic majority: Senators Collins, Snowe and Spector joined the 58-member Democratic caucus to invoke cloture.
On February 13, 2009 at 2:24 p.m., the bill was passed by the House with 246 Yeas and 183 Nays. No Republicans in the House voted for the bill. At 10:48 p.m., the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 60-38, with all Democrats and Independents voting for the bill along with three Republicans.
The 1,071 page Conference Report with final handwritten provisions was made available to the public late Friday. Very few, if any, lawmakers read the final version before their vote was cast.
Hidden Provisions added that would not provide job creation or economic growth:
- $650 million for digital television converter box coupons
- $300 million for electric quasi-golf carts (NY Post)
- $1 billion for Amtrak, which hasn't been profitable in half a century (WSJ)
- $400 million for global warming research by NASA scientists (Real Clear Politics)
- $2.2 billion for carbon capture research
- $75 million for smoking cessation programs (MichelleMalkin)
- $335 million for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases (WashingtonTimes)
- $20 billion to hasten depreciation and write-off for equipment
- $209 million for work on deferred maintenance at Agricultural Research Service facilities
- $245 million for maintaining and modernizing the IT system of the Farm Service Agency
- $1 billion for "Periodic Censuses and Programs"
- $140 million for "climate data modeling"
- $600 million to buy and lease government plug-in and alternative fuel vehicles
- $1.2 billion in grants to states for youth summer jobs programs and other activities
- $600 million for "preparations" for socialized medicine (Bloomberg, FoxNews video)
- $6 billion for energy efficiency projects on government buildings
- $4.4 billion allocation for "smart" technologies, which includes power monitors ("smart meters")
- $8 billion to construct high-speed rail lines (Associated Press)
Other Sources regarding the stmulus package proposal:
'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years (Steve Moore - WSJ)
The Job-Destroying Stimulus Bill (The Club for Growth)
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