Using Crisis To Advantage, House Democrats Pass Stimulus
Jan 29, 2009 Political
Rahm Emanuel said that they should never let a crisis go to waste. He said that they should use a crisis to pass legislation that they would never be able to pass otherwise. Thus we get statements telling us of the dire consequences if we fail to act.
- “We don’t have a moment to spare,” Obama declared at the White House as congressional allies hastened to do his bidding in the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
- “Another week that we delay is another 100,000 or more people unemployed. I don’t think we want that on our consciences,” said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the leading architects of the legislation.
The first thing I will mention is that most Americans only want 535 people to lose their jobs next week and those people are in Congress. Secondly, if we are going to lose 100,000 jobs a week we are going to do so for a long time even if this passes and is signed into law tonight. The bill contains very few things that will stimulate the economy and create jobs.
The jobs it will create are jobs working for the government rebuilding infrastructure and those projects will not start for months and maybe a year or more down the road because it takes time to draw up plans, get approvals and put things in place. It might take longer because the Obama administration has been advised not to hire skilled or white workers for the projects. Unskilled minorities are best, according to Robert Reich.
The bill includes great amounts of money for things that will NOT stimulate the economy. The bill contains money for contraception, sexually transmitted disease prevention, voter fraud organizations (ACORN), a mob museum and a number of other items. These things will not stimulate the economy and they will not provide enough jobs (if any) to change the unemployment rate. Other than those involved in building a mobster museum, I can’t think of anything on this list that would create a job. I would love for my liberal commenters to explain these things and tell me how they help the economy.
Please don’t tell me they stop births or improve health or other nonsense because none of that has anything to do with the economy.
It was a foregone conclusion that the bill would pass in the House. The Democrats have a large enough majority that they can pass anything they want on a strictly party line vote. Obama wanted Republicans on board so that if (in his mind, when in mine) it fails he can say it was a bipartisan effort and that they all hold some of the responsibility. As he stated in his meeting, he won’t get reelected if things go badly.
Every Republican except one voted no. There was one Republican who did not vote. Eleven Democrats voted no with the balance voting for it. The final tally was 244-188.
The real battle will be in the Senate. The Republicans can filibuster this and keep it from passing.
Of course, there are a number of concerns with the RINOs who might vote with the Democrats. I am hoping Gillibrand, the new Democrat from New York, continues her opposition to a bailout but she is 99th in seniority and might be forced (ahem, coerced) to go along. Time will tell.
It is time for people to call their Republican Senators and tell them to vote no and to filibuster it to death. They need to be warned that if they vote for it they will be targeted in the next election. They only understand their political careers so that is what they need to see as a consequence of voting for it. This is true of Blue Dog Democrats as well. They will be vulnerable in the next election and their vote could make the difference in where they work in 2011.
This “stimulus” plan will not work. It contains a ton of pork that has nothing to do with the economy and it will saddle us with even more debt. This debt will come from the party that criticized the debt under George Bush which will seem like a drop of water in the ocean compared to this mess. This debt will also be passed on to our children, our grandchildren and to generations of people who are not even born yet.
One warning. Don’t listen to those who say that it will take a few years or that estimates about how money will be spent are incorrect. The reality is that the politicians know it will take quite some time for the economy to recover (it will recover with or without the stimulus) and they want to prepare people now so they do not get shelled in the 2010 midterm elections.
If Senate Republicans follow the House’s lead then at least the Democrats can’t claim it was a bipartisan effort when campaigning for your votes.
To be fair though, if it passes and is a success (by my standards, not a politician’s) then I will give them credit. Of course, I know it will not be successful. History has shown us as much.
Walter E. Williams has an excellent article out that concludes with this:
In stimulus package language, if Congress taxes to hand out money, one person is stimulated at the expense of another, who pays the tax, who is unstimulated. A visual representation of the stimulus package is: Imagine you see a person at work taking buckets of water from the deep end of a swimming pool and dumping them into the shallow end in an attempt to make it deeper. You would deem him stupid. That scenario is equivalent to what Congress and the new president proposes for the economy. A far more important measure that Congress can take toward a healthy economy is to ensure that the 2003 tax cuts don’t expire in 2010 as scheduled. If not, there are 15 separate taxes scheduled to rise in 2010, costing Americans $200 billion a year in increased taxes. In the face of a recession, we don’t need that. [emphasis mine]
The article explains the situation and tells why the “stimulus” will not work. Please take the time to read it.
Then call your Senators…
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Stimulus Nears 1.6 TRILLION Dollars
Jan 28, 2009 Political
The economic stimulus package that must urgently be passed is nearing 900 BILLION dollars. Combine that with the 700 Billion that has already been spent and we are nearing 2 TRILLION dollars in stimulus spending, most of which will not stimulate the economy. There are questions as to whether it will actually create any jobs.
I give Obama credit for meeting with Republicans and telling them he was open to suggestions because this is more than the Democrats in Congress have done. But the reality is, bipartisanship and agreement are defined by Democrats as when you agree to what they want.
I have little doubt the stimulus will pass in the House because Democrats have a large majority there. There are enough votes to allow vulnerable Democrats to vote no. The Senate will be more tricky but it is likely that a few Republicans will defect to the other side and pass this boondoggle. Look how easily they rolled over on the nominations of Obama’s nominees…
Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans should be very careful. The next elections are not that far away and the public had had enough. A vote for the bailout could be a bad career move especially if the economy is still in turmoil when 2010 rolls around.
The stimulus is a bad idea. The first one did not work so the solution is to throw more money at the problem. This is like being in a boat with a hole in the bottom and deciding the way to fix the problem is to make the hole bigger.
The special interests are lined up in DC with their hands out for money we don’t have and that our grandchildren will be paying back.
This is no way to run a country.
Sources:
WSJ
My Way News
al Reuters
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Tags: bailout, democrat, republican, stimulus, trillion
Change I Don’t Believe
Jan 15, 2009 Political
Barack Obama ran his entire campaign on the theme of hope and change. He told us it was change we could believe in. He is not in office yet and already I see change but it is not change I can believe in, it is change I just can’t believe. However, he did tell people he was going to change things but he failed to mention if that change would be good or bad. Here is some change that I don’t think will be good:
- A nominee for Secretary of State that is extremely conflicted. Her husband is a former president and he receives money from around the world. How effective will she be working to do her job and keeping her husband’s money train running?
- A nominee for Director of the CIA who has absolutely no background in the intelligence field. In these perilous times, is that the kind of change we need?
- The governor of his home state tried to sell his vacated Senate seat. The Senate now has a person that the Democrats and Obama did not want.
- Hillary’s soon to be vacated seat is being pursued by Caroline Kennedy, who Obama supports. She has never held a job much less public office. Her claim to fame is her name, her money, and the fact that her father was a president who was assassinated.
- His choice for Homeland Security has not even been able to get an emergency plan for her state squared away. How will she take care of an entire country?
- His choice for Commerce Secretary had to withdraw to fight corruption charges.
- His choice for Treasury Secretary did not pay his taxes even though he received money to do so and signed papers saying he would. This was explained as an oversight and blamed on a lack of knowledge. Is this the kind of person we want watching over our treasury?
- He is proposing the largest spending package in our history claiming it will help fix the economy. If spending was the cure for the economy it would not be in bad shape because George Bush did nothing but spend for the last eight years.
- He has broken promise after promise. He is realizing that it is easy to say it on the campaign trail but actually doing it, once in office, is very difficult.
While Obama has been lauded for some of his other picks it is safe to say that he has filled his administration with Clinton retreads and he has put people of questionable integrity or who are completely unqualified in important positions. I imagine the MSM and Obama toadies will not criticize him the way they did President Bush when he put unqualified people in charge. Good job Brownie. Where are the trolls who infest this place criticizing Bush for things like this? Probably in the Kool Aid line.
I should not be surprised that Obama has selected unqualified people for positions. He is not qualified for the position he will soon hold. He has never been in charge of anything and his claim to fame is being a rabble rouser. He spent little time at the national level before he launched into his run for the presidency. The only good thing is that once he is done as president there will be nowhere else for him in government. He can fly around with Bill Clinton with his hand out.
This line up is a disaster waiting to happen and the ones who will suffer are the American people.
When the next 9/11 happens these people will make the Keystone Cops look like the Special Forces.
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Tags: change, corruption, hope, Obama, stimulus, unqualified
Obama Sees Benefit of not Taxing the Rich
Jun 18, 2008 Political
Barack Obama is cut from the same cloth as many Democrats before him. Tax and spend, and then tax and spend some more. Democrats always talk about taxing the rich as if that would solve our problems and as if the Rich don’t pay enough in taxes as it is. Whenever tax cuts are mentioned Democrats recoil like Dracula exposed to a Cross. Tax cuts are always bad unless the have a candidate running in a conservative region. Then they talk about how wonderful tax cuts are. Of course, to a Democrat, tax cuts are always for the rich. This is partially true because the rich pay most of the taxes in this country. However, the middle class made out better under the last tax cuts than the rich did. I don’t include the poor because they pay little, if any, taxes (why they did not get a rebate when the president cut taxes).
Democrats let the cat out of the bag recently when they discussed the “rebate” checks. They all talked about how the economy would be stimulated and that is what they named the bipartisan venture; The Economic Stimulus Bill. Democrats were forced to admit that allowing Americans to keep more of their money causes them to spend more and is better for the economy. The problem is, they gave the money to people who pay little or no taxes. Notice I say gave. In some cases they returned the money to people who paid taxes but a lot of people who pay absolutely nothing in taxes received tax “rebates” from money paid in by others. The Democrats will admit that lower taxes (that is what an economic stimulus is, after all) are good for the economy when it is an election year but they never quite seem to understand that it is better to take less from people than to take it and give some back when an election is not around the corner.
Barack Obama has been talking about how he will end Bush’s tax cuts “for the rich” and how he will tax people who make more than $250,000 a year. He would also lower taxes on the middle class, a group that shoulders a smaller part of the country’s burden than those making more. Obama is full of taxes. Tax this, tax that but in all of it, he admitted that it might not be wise to tax the rich after all:
Among Obama’s other proposals: raising the tax on capital gains and qualified dividends. However, Obama has raised the possibility of deferring some of his tax hikes on the wealthy given the ailing economy. My Way News
So Barry O Bam Bam understands that taxing the wealthy is not a great idea in a difficult economy. He must understand that doing so would make the economic problems much worse because it is the money of the wealthy that provides jobs and business opportunities. It is also the wealthy spending their money that helps stimulate the economy and when they are taxed more they spend less or, like members of Congress, they look for more tax free investments. If taxing them during down times is a cause for concern then why would it be OK to tax them in up times? Higher taxes result in economic troubles and no country ever taxed its way to prosperity. The way to make things better is for Congress to eliminate wasteful spending and there is a lot of that to eliminate.
Of course, Barry O Bam Bam can’t exactly do that since he is proposing trillions in additional wasteful spending. I am willing to bet he will not defer his plans to spend because of the ailing economy.
Tags: economy, Obama, rebates, spending, stimulus, tax the wealthy, taxes
Economic Relief Package is Socialism
Jan 25, 2008 General
The economy is in a downturn right now with some saying we are headed for or in a recession and others saying that things will be better by the third quarter of the year. The White House and Congress have drafted a plan to stimulate the economy, a package that has rare bipartisan support. The problem with the package is that it is a redistribution of wealth.
The plan calls for rebate checks for people who did not earn enough money to pay income taxes and caps the rebates at income levels of $75,000 for single taxpayers and $150,000 for married taxpayers. The rebates completely phase out at $87,000 and $174,000 respectively. The word rebate in this plan is misleading because a rebate is the return of something a person has paid. When one buys a camera with a rebate then part of what the person paid is sent back. If the economic plan were applied to the business world then one person would buy the camera and the company would send the rebate to a person who did not buy one.
The Democrats are not completely on board with the plan because it does not include more benefits (such as unemployment) along with the redistribution of wealth from those who pay the taxes to those who do not. In other words, they like it but feel it is has enough socialism built into it.
The government likes this plan because it will put money in the hands of people who are likely to spend it. If they gave the money back to the people who actually paid it then about 70% would be invested. Instead, the money will go to those who will run right out and spend it instead of putting some of it away for the future. The plan is short term as well as short sighted and since the government is slow with these kinds of things the money is likely to hit people’s hands about the time the economy starts to get better (depending on what economists one listens to). Additionally, this plan will do absolutely nothing to fix the part of the economy that is causing most of the problems, the housing crunch.
I know one thing that can end with this so called rebate and that is the mantra that our tax policies only help the rich. In this case, the rich are sending their money to the poor. There are some who will say that we are borrowing the money (which increases the deficit) so it is not coming from the rich. In reality, the government will have to get the money from some place and that place is from those who pay taxes.
If we want to stimulate the economy how about we cut taxes across the board so people will have more of their income to spend? How about we make other countries pay tariffs on the items they export to our country. How about we force our elected leaders to limit spending and force them to balance the budget? How about we force them to stop adding pork to bills and end the earmark practice? We could start drilling for our own oil and drive the costs down?
Of course these things are unlikely to happen because our elected officials are short sighted. The only reason they came up with this plan is because it is an election year and they all want to be able to say they helped the poor. While they like to pretend there are enough rich to tax into oblivion, they realize that the middle class and poor make up the lion’s share of our population. They will have far more votes than those who will foot the bill.
Socialism is the way of the left and they will certainly expand upon it should a Democrat be elected to the White House and the Republicans are so fragmented they are going along with it.
Sources:
Washington Post
The Politico
