Politics is misdirection; democracy is a facade
On 07/24/2011 07:34 AM, JohnJohnsn wrote:
On Jul 23, 8:48 am, wrote:
ISN'T IT OBVIOUS to all but you brainless racists among us that the
"Boehner Plan" is aimed squarely at making Obama the first president
to preside over a U.S. DEFAULT?
I think it's time for a retrospective on the Obama Administration's
and the Democrat's previous spending, in order to fuly understand just
how we got to this point.
From the January 28, 2009 "Review& Outlook" section of the Wall
Street Journal comes:
.
A 40-Year Wish List
You won't believe what's in that stimulus bill..
"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's
an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."
So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and
Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The
647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being sold as an economic
"stimulus," but now that Democrats have finally released the details
we understand Rahm's point much better. This is a political wonder
that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic
proposal of the last 40 years.
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.
In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make
"dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy." Well, you be
the judge. 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.
Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate
only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1,
is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.
And even many of these projects aren't likely to help the economy
immediately. As Peter Orszag, the President's new budget director,
told Congress a year ago, "even those [public works] that are 'on the
shelf' generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely
stimulus to the economy."
Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as
renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion)
that have a low or negative return on investment. Most urban transit
systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of
their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to
public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess
which party?
Here's another lu-lu: Congress wants to spend $600 million more for
the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3
billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles. Congress also wants
to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities.
The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the
Smithsonian, too, but this is a job creator?
Another "stimulus" secret is that some $252 billion is for income-
transfer payments -- that is, not investments that arguably help
everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at
all. There's $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded
unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion
for the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax.
While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out
the recession, they aren't job
As for the promise of accountability, some $54 billion will go to
federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the
Government Accountability Office have already criticized as
"ineffective" or unable to pass basic financial audits. These include
the Economic Development Administration, the Small Business
Administration, the 10 federal job training programs, and many more.
Oh, and don't forget education, which would get $66 billion more.
That's more than the entire Education Department spent a mere 10 years
ago and is on top of the doubling under President Bush. Some $6
billion of this will subsidize university building projects. If you
think the intention here is to help kids learn, the House declares on
page 257 that "No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide
financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or
secondary schools." Horrors: Some money might go to nonunion teachers.
The larger fiscal issue here is whether this spending bonanza will
become part of the annual "budget baseline" that Congress uses as the
new floor when calculating how much to increase spending the following
year, and into the future. Democrats insist that it will not. But it's
hard -- no, impossible -- to believe that Congress will cut spending
next year on any of these programs from their new, higher levels. The
likelihood is that this allegedly emergency spending will become a
permanent addition to federal outlays -- increasing pressure for tax
increases in the bargain. Any Blue Dog Democrat who votes for this
ought to turn in his "deficit hawk" credentials.
This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was
written based on the wish list of every living -- or dead --
Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, "We won the
election. We wrote the bill." So they did. Republicans should let them
take all of the credit.
-30-
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A14
"History is indeed the witness of the times, the light of truth."
--Marcus Tullius Cicero
"The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and
assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall."
--Marcus Tullius Cicero, 55 B.C.
"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.
Government programs, once launched, never disappear.
Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal
life we'll ever see on this earth! "
-- Ronald Reagan
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant;
it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
— Ronald Wilson Reagan
"Confronting Liberals with the facts of reality is very much akin
to clubbing baby seals. It gets boring after a while, but because
Liberals are so stupid it is easy work."
— Steven M. Barry
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