MoveOn Ad: “Every Republican voted with Limbaugh — and against creating 4 million new American jobs.”
Where is the legislation that creates 4 million new American jobs? I have not seen that legislation, have you?
I have seen legislation that allocates the following:
- On Friday, House Republican Leader John Boehner raised the alarm with the discovery that, buried in the trillion-dollar spending bill approved last week in the House Appropriations Committee was a provision for more than 4 billion dollars to go to “neighborhood stabilization activities.” Instead of providing these funds just to state and local governments, their bills says funds can go to “States, units of general local government, and nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities.”
- The $800 billion-plus economic stimulus measure making its way through Congress could steer government checks to illegal immigrants, a top Republican congressional official asserted Thursday.The legislation, which would send tax credits of $500 per worker and $1,000 per couple, expressly disqualifies nonresident aliens, but it would allow people who don’t have Social Security numbers to be eligible for the checks.
- The House Democrats’ bill includes $335 million for sexually transmitted disease education and prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Via Michelle is this link to Yellow Limes :
Here are some numbers/items (remember, all in the name of “saving jobs, and saving America’s economy”):
Page 41: The Coast Guard wants more than $572 million for “Acquisition, Construction, & Improvements” They claim these funds will create 1,235 new jobs. Crunch the numbers and this brings the cost of “creating” each job to a staggering $460,000+
Page 23: $200 million for Dep. of Defense to acquire alternative energy vehicles.
Page 32: $1.5 billion (with a “B”) for a “carbon-capturing contest”
Page 64: $3.5 billion for higher education facilities. This is ridiculous as I know in Georgia the Board of Regents has imposed a “temporary” (yea right!) $75 fee per student during this economic crisis. The funds from this per-student fee stays at the school and is used to offset current budget shortfalls.
We at AASU are starting construction on our new student center, all paid for by student fees. No tax money has been used during any process of this planning. How about asking other higher education institutions to do the same, or hold off on any renovations, additions, etc.?
Tom Jones notes another $200 million for DoD plug-in car stations and crunches the numbers: 53,526 plug-in cars = >$3700/car.
P. 45: “$25,000,000 is for recreation maintenance, especially for rehabilitation of off-road vehicle routes, and $20,000,000 is for trail maintenance and restoration.” ATV owners, rejoice.
P. 60: $400 million for HIV and chlamydia testing.
Stimulus stupidity alert: $75 million for smoking cessation
The WSJ :
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 creators.
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.
I don’t know about you, but I’m with Rush
Linked with:
- Fiscal Suicide: 20 Things That Suck « JoHNBRoDiGaNDoTCoM
- Stimulus stupidity alert: $460,000/Coast Guard job, $1.5 bil “carbon capturing contest,” $400 mil chlamydia/HIV tests, $45 mil for ATV trails & more! — But As For Me
- Congress Hits the Jackpot! « Conservative Pilgrim
- Jeremiah Films
- The Irascible Chef » Slippery Slope Effect
- Stimulating Socialism « The Rational Actor
- Limbaugh– “I have hijacked Obama’s honeymoon.” « Caeri’s Conservative Chronicle
- The Frog in Hot Water » Blogosphere Buzz
- With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true. « Goodtimepolitics
- Are Muslims offended when we call it “pork”? « The Constitution Club
- Dear President Obama, Please Make Jessica Simpson Sexy Again! « Riggword Weblog
- The Baltimore Reporter
- 244-188 « The American Catholic
- Sarah Palin en Español
- Generational Theft Act of 2009 – More pork details « from the foothills
- GOP holds the line: 244-188. This crap sandwich is all yours, Dems — But As For Me
- Obama celebrates spending binge with cocktails and wagyu steak — But As For Me
January 30, 2009 - 10:07 AM on January 30th, 2009
Now the republicans are concerned about spending? What about the last eight years when we went from a surplus to the largest deficit in history? What about the bridge to nowhere? Earmarks were just fine when the congress approving it had a republican majority, but the republican partisans said nothing then. You either have principals both when your part is in charge of the government and when it is not, or your just a whining partisan hypocrit.
—Disenchanted fiscal con.
January 31, 2009 - 08:19 AM on January 31st, 2009
The Republican base was never okay with the wasteful spending Eric..Take a look at our archives. Take a look at the archives of every major Right leaning blog..the wasteful spending was never okay.
January 31, 2009 - 11:00 AM on January 31st, 2009
“You either have principals both when your part is in charge of the government and when it is not, or your just a whining partisan hypocrit.”
Eric you make a general statement about Republicans, then you make it specific to Pam and RVers.
The Conservatives, Including us, were angry and outraged when the story of the Bridge to Nowhere came out several years ago. You are right that there are too many RINOs in the Republican party.
But to say what you did about Pam and those of us on RV is plain wrong.
February 3, 2009 - 11:14 AM on February 3rd, 2009
MOVEON TO SOCIALISM just another crooked bunch of dirty lying liberal scoundrels