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Has anyone heard anything about the stimulus stating that if you're white, do not apply?
Stimulus Package
I've read a lot about it on line and decided to get the info from the government itself.
Division B is where the so-called stimulus for us is located. A whole 5 pages or so. The rest is for millions and billions to go to:
Agricultural Research Services, buildings and facilities
Rural Development Programs, rural housing services, utilities including distance learning, telemedicine,and broadband program
Bonneville Power Administration
Appropriations Transfer Authority: Department of Energy for `Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy', `Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability', and `Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee Program'
Financial Services: GSA, federal building fund,energy efficient government motor vehicle fleet procurement
Then we come to small businesses. Economic Stimulus LENDING for small businesses.
Shall I keep going or does everybody get the jist of this so-called stimulus package?
I know some of you don't like Glen Beck, but he has broken it down by the numbers and provides links so you can check the facts yourself. It sounds okay until you get to the heading: "When is the money going to be spent, and on what?"
By Andrea Tantaros
Republican Political Commentator/FOXNews.com Contributor
President-elect Barack Obama is prepping to jam another massive stimulus plan down our throats. Lately the president-elect has been hitting the media circuit to sell this monstrosity and each time he launches into his pitch he proves that what he lacks in actual specifics he makes up for in vocabulary. But is this bloated bill just a ruse for another big, federally funded bailout for struggling states?
Obama
According to Obama, his road and sewer stimulus package would pump billions into things like “infrastructure” and “green jobs.” Wait a minute, nobody is saying that the failure to spend over $700 billion on roads and sewers created this mess, and no one saying that new sewers will get us out of it. Obama has insisted that we must invest in what works. How do we know green jobs will work and provide a return? We don’t. And it’s quite a pricey experiment to find out.
What’s most troubling is the notion that more taxpayer money is heading right for states that are in the red. Just a few weeks ago, governors and mayors made their way to Washington, DC to hound Obama for a handout. Now mayors across America have submitted over 11,000 proposals for some bailout cash including one to fund a mob museum in Vegas. Talk about a real gamble in Sin City. Is Tony “The Ant” Spilotro really our best bet?
Take New York for example, a state that’s in financial ruin. The Empire State is facing a $15 billion budget deficit. Why would we encourage a state that spent itself into disaster to spend more? There are workers already repairing sewers and roads around the Big Apple and America. Will Obama give money that will be spent on existing jobs or hire thousands of new sewer workers?
According to Obama, “only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy…where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.” What our future president doesn’t understand is that the vicious cycles were caused by the government through the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the refusal to regulate, in part because there was a belief that a regulation would prevent the prosperity associated with owning a home. How do we expect government to be part of the solution? According to CNBC we have allocated 7 trillion to fix our economic crisis and there is $300 billion currently left in TARP. Is that not enough?
Obama is refusing to ask the same question that homeowners didn’t answer when the mortgage mess was going on: Can we afford to borrow this money? At some point we are mortgaging our national security by letting developing countries buy our debt. The more we spend the less we have to spend on our national defense. What if China develops a distaste for buying our debt? Maybe refusing to borrow more money might be the best thing for us. Sort of like the way parents cut off a frivolous child’s allowance.
On the campaign trail Obama campaigned for balanced budgets. This might be his first broken promise. While we wait to hear answers about what this massive deficit spending will do to our currency, to inflation and to our national security even Obama admits that his recovery plan alone will not solve all the problems that led us into this crisis. (So why are we doing it??) I’ll tell you what, for a trillion dollars, it better.
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/01/13/tantaros_stimulus/
You are completely skipping the part about the stimulus package
It is on his own blog! How is that fair in the least little bit? So because my husband is a white construction worker who has worked hard ALL his life, payed his way through college without taking out loans or borrowing money (it took him six years to graduate because he was working and taking classes) took out a mortgage that he could handle, yet now due to the housing crisis and economic crisis is getting the short end of the stick, just because he is white he shouldn't be included in this package?
And someone attacked me earlier for being racist and saying that maybe he just wasn't the "best candidate" for a position. I think I can 100% say it didn't matter if he was the "best candidate," it mattered that he wasn't a minority.
This is so out of line. There is no such thing as EQUALITY. Never will be.
The real story is that this is supposed to be a stimulus package.
I can see from your post how this would help save states money over time, but how would it help stimulate the economy now? It wouldn't and that's why people are so upset.
The real story is that this is supposed to be a stimulus package.
I can see from your post how this would help save states money over time, but how would it help stimulate the economy now? It wouldn't and that's why people are so upset. Even Obama has said that if it doesn't create a job or save a job, it doesn't belong in there.
Obama hopes the stimulus package is large How is paying for somebody's birth control gonna produce jobs or a 20 MILLION dollar minor league baseball museum, 20 million dollars at a zoo, OR 1.5 million to reduce prostitution in Ohio? This is nothing but a pork barrel project.........isn't that what Obama said he WOULD DO AWAY WITH? All pork barrel spending? What a joke!
Kinda makes me rethink the whole stimulus package........
Evidently Pickens Plan was incorporated in there..........as much as it was allowed!
With the stimulus package there are built in tax credits for small businesses and SBA...sm
I have worked in retail as an assistant buyer and see their profit margins...and I know there are many legit, honest, mom and pop stores, but they usually make up for it by hiring school kids for slave wages and also family members. I am talking about across the board, in factories, retail, hospitalitiy, techno, every sector, these workers would all be paying more EACH WEEK into the the tax stucture in this country, strengtheing our reserves, becomeing consumers themselves because they can finally afford something....I feel like I dropped from another planet here, or industry in MT is not the norm by far.
Liar, liar - Sen. Dodd Admits Adding Bonus Provision to Stimulus Package
are for PERMANENT jobs; i.e., those jobs will never go away, but they are for jobs that will not help the average person. We will be paying forever for those jobs.
As I said before, stimulus means jobs, tax cuts, housing fixes, etc. What most of the package contains is stuff that should be in a regular budget. Cut it from 600-something pages down to 4 or 5, or at least 10 at the most, and you have something.
I posted McCain's amendment above.
For the original package...(sm)
but unsure if it will help as it stands. The popularity of the against vote for the bill has been fascilitated by some keen advertising on the pub side. I'm hoping Obama will call the pubs out on tonight's address and point out exactly what it is that pubs want in the bill (more tax breaks for the wealthy that we can't afford), and in particular, which pubs want it. If he does that keep your eye on the polls. People will be outraged.
It's done. He just signed the package.
Got a kick out the guy who owns a small business out there. So young and employs 55 people in 3 years. He mispronounced Biden's name and everybody laughed. I don't think he realized what he did. He was nervous.
I never met a soldier who didn't want a package.
Bringing them home does not enter into this. Yet AGAIN you cannot stop your political agenda long enough to think of just the troops. I know now it is impossible. We all want them home. ALL OF US. It's just that some us would like to make their lives as easy as possible while they are away, and SOME OF US WANT TO SAY THANK YOU.
The O also voted for the bailout package. (nm)
x
I've read too much about this package
and it will not help the people that need help. It doesn't provide help to the regular "joe's" out there that need help. It is all about the greed again. Most of it will only help regular "joe's" by the year 2011, not now. By that time, we will either be down the tubes or everything will have corrected itself on its own.
I don't think government should meddle in ways to try to turn the economy around. It only mkes it worse. Look at all the handouts in the first stimulus package. Did the regular "joe's" get any help out of it? Nope. It will be the same with this one. Did you see Glen Beck's breakdown on the package posted below? If not, I suggest you look at it or else I can post it here.
It goes to show that the democrats don't give a darn about us, just their agenda even though 11 democrats voted against it. That has to say something. Evidently, the democrats (and I don't mean this harshly) didn't get enough calls from their constiuents to knock this package into oblivion. They were in a hurry to pass it? Why? Not because it would help us, but because they wanted it passed before anyone really got a chance to see what it entailed.
Sorry, but I disagree with you whole heartedly. This will not help. It will only hurt. This will take our dollars down to zero and the next thing you know, we will be taking wheelbarrows of money to the store to buy a loaf of bread if you can even find it in the stores.
In fact, 2 years ago, they turned a whole mountain into windmills. Who has those jobs? The company that put them there. Their guys come from another state to maintain and repair them. No locals are employed by that company. Doesn't make sense but that's the way they do it.
False. Most progressive economists agree (and Paul Krugman is downright emphatic) that it's going to take a minimum of a trillion dollars of well-placed investment to pull our economy out of this ditch. This is no time for half-measures, blue-ribbon committees, pilot projects, or trial balloons: this is a life-or-death crisis that requires immediate and massive intervention.
CAF Senior Fellow Bernie Horn puts it this way: "The American economy is huge and it’s at a standstill. It’s like a motionless 100-car freight train—or one going backwards slowly. A small locomotive simply can’t pull it forward. We need an engine large enough to work, one that can create millions of jobs. If anything, a $775 billion 2-year plan may be too small rather than too big."
Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research echoed this same thing on Rachel Maddow's show last Tuesday night. It's got to be big. And it's got to be now. Anything too small—or too late—and the American economy will be at serious risk of stagnating the same way Japan's did in the 1990s.
2. If we can't afford (insert pet project here), we certainly can't afford this.
Yes, we can. What we really can't afford is a huge recession that undercuts the tax base. That's a vicious cycle that will make it increasingly harder to dig out the longer this goes on. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the current slowdown will cost the federal government $166 billion in lost tax revenues in 2009—a number that could easily get even larger in coming years if we fall into a real depression. If we get on that trendline, we could lose a trillion dollars in government revenues by the end of Obama's first term. We need to invest what we have while we still have it if we hope to have a strong economy going forward.
This argument is based on the limited view that wealth is mainly generated by loaning or borrowing at interest—a common enough assumption among financial people over the past 30 years. A more progressive view is that real wealth is generated by labor, combined with access to resources required for production. Putting people to work creates wealth. So does ensuring that our current failing energy regime is replaced as rapidly as possible with one that's infinitely renewable and that we will finally be in full control of. And so do other kinds of infrastructure investments, which form the footing on which a new round of businesses can rise and thrive.
Businesses have always invested their capital to create more capital. The best parts of Obama's proposal involve getting the government to do the same thing. Conservatives are resisting this because don't believe that there's such a thing as the common wealth—which is how they've rationalized their plundering of our common assets. We need to make it absolutely clear that we do believe in the common wealth—and that their assaults on everything that allows America to generate national wealth are going stop, right here and right now.
3. It's more important to balance the budget. Fix that, and the rest will take care of itself.
Read history much? Herbert Hoover is history's poster boy for the idea that balancing the budget during a recession is the best way known to turn it into a full-on depression. And that wasn't a one-off: FDR repeated the lesson in 1937, when he succumbed to the pleas of budget-hawk conservatives and tried to balance the budget—a move that put the brakes on what had, until then, been a solid recovery.
Looking forward, this year's numbers also show the case clearly. Economists are already estimating that spending by individuals and businesses will be off by $300 to $500 billion in 2009. The upshot of this will be millions of lost jobs, which in turn will mean even lower spending and more job losses next year as the country accelerates toward depression.
The only way to halt this slide is for the government to step in and fill the hole with an additional $300 billion-$500 billion of its own spending—and to spend that money on investments that will create as many jobs as possible. The longer we wait, the more government spending it will ultimately take to pull us out of this—and the less able we'll be to muster that much cash.
Balanced budgets are important, but not as important right now as making sure every American has a paycheck they can count on. We can't afford to sacrifice the fate of the entire country to this one economic ideal.
4. The worst thing we can possibly do is raise taxes. Or borrow the money, God forbid.
More misplaced priorities.
As for taxes: Obama's already told us, without apologies to anyone, that he plans to raise taxes on people making over $250,000 a year—the people who've profited most from our current high levels of inequality. Practically, it makes sense to raise taxes on the affluent, since they're increasingly the only ones left who actually have any money. And morally, it's only fair that those who've gained the most from conservative mismanagement of the economy (regardless of their own political leanings) should be the first to pay the bills for it.
As for borrowing: Don't look now, but the whole planet is reeling from financial problems as least as big as ours. Even in the midst of this colossal fiscal mess we're in, if you're an individual, business, or government with excess capital to store somewhere, the USA is still the safest place on earth to park it.
They're so eager for our American brand of low-risk investment that they're even willing to lend their cash to us at interest rates that are very close to zero (and may actually turn out to be less than zero, once you add in inflation). If someone offered you the chance to borrow massive amounts of money without paying interest, you'd do it, right? Well, that money's already sitting on the table, just waiting for us to put it to work jump-starting our economy again. We'd be fools not to take it.
5. When you want to stimulate the economy, tax cuts always beat government spending hands-down.
Another conservative fantasy that disintegrates on contact with reality.
The chart that shows the effectiveness of various forms of government stimulus, based on recent attempts, is here. (Conservatives will be infuriated to learn that food stamps come out on top, generating $1.73 for every dollar spent. Infrastructure investments come in a respectable third. The bottom half of the chart is wall-to-wall tax cut schemes.)
The problem with tax cuts is that people don't spend them in ways that get the economy moving. The Wall Street Journal reports that only 10 to 20 percent of the money remanded to taxpayers in the 2008 tax rebate actually got spent. The other 80 to 90 percent ended up in people's personal savings, were used to pay off creditors, or were simply absorbed by inflation and higher living costs.
Knowing this, we're a bit dismayed Obama is proposing to sink as much as 40 percent of his stimulus package into tax cuts. That's too much, if you ask us. But at least they're targeted at the middle class—people who are more likely to spend that money here in the U.S., rather than ship it off to investments abroad.
6. Large-scale government investment would inevitably turn into an orgy of waste, fraud and abuse.
True—but only if we let conservatives run the show.
The fact is that all human endeavors—from running a household to running a nation—entail a fair amount of waste, fraud and abuse. Bad decisions get made. Greed gets the better of people. Not everybody is as honest as we'd wish them to be.
But in spite of that truth, nobody in history can top the Americans when it comes to planning and executing successful large-scale investment projects. (A thousand years from now, that's what they'll be saying about us: Not always smart about foreign policy, but man, could those people think big—and they usually pulled it off, too.) In our happier past, good management, careful oversight, and clear accountability have always gone a long way toward preventing really big problems, and ensured that we got the most for our collective buck.
Unfortunately, if we've learned anything about conservatives at this late date, it's that they'll defang or dismantle these mechanisms every chance they get. They think rules are for lesser mortals, oversight is a form of Big Brother-style oppression, and accountability is for people who can't afford lobbyists and lawyers. I don't think anyone would even try argue any more that when it comes to waste, fraud, and abuse, conservatives are the hands-down experts.
What's ironic is that they're now offering edifying moral guidance to the rest of us on the subject. All you can do is point and giggle at the stupefying hypocrisy of it all.
7. We need stimulus now—and tax cuts are the only way to get the money out there fast enough.
Not really, no. Much of the infrastructure spending in the recovery package will be targeted at projects that are “shovel ready”—the ones that are planned, approved, and sitting on the shelf ready to go as soon as there's money to fund them. Some of these could start generating jobs as early as April or May.
Some of this money will also be aimed at covering state budget deficits. That money will also be spent immediately on things like health care, child-care programs and other underfunded state services that employ large numbers of people.
That's a lot of direct funding that will put people to work quickly—quite likely, faster than giving people tax cuts and letting them trickle out through the economy.
8. It’s wrong to bail out spend-thrift states. Let them stimulate their own damned economies.
Please. Haven't we all had a lifetime bellyfull of tax revolutionaries and drown-the-government-in-the-bathtub crazies? I swear...can't live with 'em, can't just shoot 'em....
States aren't in trouble because they overspent their allowances. Almost every state constitution in the country requires that the government balance its budget every single year. You want fiscal sanity? Anybody who's put in their time in state government knows all about it. They've made the hard choices, and faced the consequences, too.
The problem is that the recession has undercut state tax revenues to the point where these governments can no longer afford to cover their obligations—some of which (like bonds) were taken on years ago, when times were better. Commitments that were fiscally prudent by any measure back then are wiping them out now. Budgets that were balanced and sound when they were first outlined a couple years ago are impossible monsters today.
And, unlike the federal government, the states can't deficit spend their way out of it. That's why they need federal help.
9. This whole Keynesian thing has been totally disproved. It didn’t work during the Depression. It didn’t work for Japan in the 1980s.
Say what? We know that rewriting history is a favorite conservative pastime. America is Christian country. Slavery was good for black people. Bush was never a real conservative. Saddam was in cahoots with al-Qaida. And on it goes.
The campaign to discredit Keynes (which is directly traceable to the Heritage Foundation) is a new and rather audacious fiction—one that leaves both progressive and conservative economists as gobsmacked and sputtering as scientists get when you bring up "intelligent design." And the factual basis for it is, if anything, even more specious.
Paul Krugman addresses both the Depression and the example of Japan in his new book, "The Return of Depression Economics." According to his telling of the tale, in both cases the affected economies strengthened as long as the government continued to infuse capital into them; but bobbled when there was enough improvement that the budget hawks could get some political traction. When the spending flagged, so did the recovery. In Japan, bold steps alternating with repeated failures of nerve created a liquidity trap that stagnated the country's economy through most of the 1990s.
Keynes' prescription has worked everywhere it's been tried—as long as governments acted boldly and quickly enough. It's not medicine that works if you take it in half-doses, or quit before the course of treatment is finished. In fact, doing it with less than full commitment can actually make the situation worse.
10. This is a partisan program that's designed to promote the Democratic agenda.
No. Almost every businessperson in America—including the conservative ones—are stepping forward in support of the stimulus package. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is on board with it. So (unsurprisingly) are most of the building trades and engineering groups who stand to prosper with a new round of infrastructure spending. The current economy is hurting everyone, regardless of political affiliation—and most Americans agree that it's time for the government to step in and get things going again.
TAKE ACTION
Write your member of Congress to ask for passage of a bold economic recovery plan now.
And Yes. I've written before about the way this kind of investment in the health and well-being of the middle class can, in the end, transform long-held conservative beliefs about how the economy should work. A stimulus package that works will prove that government can do important things that no other entity can do; that it can act effectively in the public interest; and that there's actually such a thing as a national common good that deserves to be protected. In short, it will reaffirm progressive values in a way that's irrefutable, and will earn the enduring respect of the country.
Most of the money will not go to the people. So far, I have not come across anything that deals with foreclosures, etc. The item I posted last night from our local newspaper is the so-called stimulus package that will help foreclosures.
Read the doggone bill that they are trying to pass, please. Then you may see the light of day.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amid record oil prices and soaring gasoline costs, Exxon Mobil's $400 million retirement package to its former CEO is a shameful display of greed that should be reviewed by Congress and investigated by federal regulators, Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record) said on Tuesday.
Dorgan said he wants Exxon Mobil officials to appear at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to explain how the corporation justifies giving its former boss, Lee Raymond, such a huge retirement package.
There can be no more compelling evidence that the price gouging and market manipulation which has produced record oil prices is out of control, and is working to serve the forces of individual greed and corporate gluttony at the painful expense of millions of American consumers, Dorgan said.
Dorgan's criticism of Raymond's financial package came on the same day that U.S. crude oil prices hit a record high of more than $71 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Higher crude oil prices are helping to push of up gasoline costs. The Energy Department reported prices jumped 10 cents over the last week to a national average of $2.78 a gallon, up 55 cents from a year ago.
President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he was concerned about the impact high gasoline prices were having on families and businesses.
Exxon earned the wrath of many lawmakers when it reported more than $36 billion in profits last year as energy prices paid by consumers soared.
Dorgan said he will push to win passage of his legislation that would impose a windfall profits tax on big oil companies and rebate that money to consumers, unless the companies used their earnings to explore for and produce more energy.
I think a sensible public policy would insist that the big oil companies either invest those windfall profits in things that will increase our own domestic energy supplies, or we should return some of that money to consumers, Dorgan said.
Using them to drop $400 million dollars in the pocket of a big oil executive is simply unacceptable, he added.
Exxon Mobil has defended Raymond's retirement package, saying it was pegged to the rise in the company's profit and market capitalization that occurred during his tenure.
stimulus
Where did you get that info from?
Stimulus
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that eliminating the waiver requirement (which is what Pelosi et AL are talking about) would save $400 million dollars over 10 years. The stimulus package contains short-term and long-term stimuli.
Here's a link, but it wasn't working last time I tried it. It's a pdf so you'll need Adobe Acrobat to read it.
If you Google "CBO stimulus package family planning waiver" you'll find new articles with references to those same figures found in the CBO report.
The stimulus was this big because it has to be BIG.
The reason it has to be BIG is because there are a lot of things that need MONEY!!! It needs to be big to get back on track, and if this doesn't work, your grandchildren will be eating dirt, everything is just that BAD!!! HE HAS TO SPEND A LOT OF MONEY!!! That's the predicament we're in because of the last 8 years. Taxes cut for the rich with 2B going to Iraq every week, we're still paying Iraqis to not shoot us at $250 a week per family, 700B a year for oil, and nothing for us. So goes the Bush agenda which did very well for the rich, but not for you nor me, now we PAY! You can't fight wars, deregulate the banks, cut taxes, etc., and expect it not to bite you in the a@@, and that's where America is now, broke and beaten to a pulp. The gift Bin Laden never thought he'd receive.
Stimulus checks
How many of you enjoyed your Stimulus Checks? I for one loved mine. Think back to what you did with that check? Maybe you paid some bills, bought that CD you have been wanting, maybe a night out with your family to a nice restaurant or even Pizza Hut. A lot of us were able to buy new clothes for our children.
Admit it, it was worth going to the mailbox for. I looked forward to the mail for once.
Senator Obama has pushed for more Stimulus checks immediately for the American people. But who do you think veto'd it? President Bush did. Senator McCain has sided with President Bush 90% of the time. Believe me, you won't be going to the mailbox to find anymore Stimulus Checks in there if you elect John McCain on November 4, 2008.
I'm ill, have no health insurance, and if we get another stimulus check, I'll be able to go see the doctor again. (I've been there twice: When I received my income tax refund and when I received the first stimulus check.)
The doctor is pretty far away, and I need to rent a car (with a $250.00 deposit) since my daughter's car is very old and probably wouldn't make the trip. (My car was repossessed when I couldn't afford the payments any more due to being in the hospital so often.)
I hope we get another stimulus check so I can see the cystic fibrosis specialist again. In the meantime, I'm fortunate to have found a good doctor for low-income people in my town.
It is the month of August, on the shores of the Black Sea . It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.
The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher. The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower.
The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.
The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town’s prostitute that in these hard times, gave her “services” on credit.
The hooke*r runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.
The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.
At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.
No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism….
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is doing business today.
And if that doesn’t scare the ____ out of you then you are brain dead!
The new stimulus payment idea
Have you seen the new stimulus payment idea, 150 billion dollars??? Do you know I looked up and it there is an estimated 304,000,000 (304 million) people in the US. 150 Billion dollar plan? Give us ALL 1 million dollars and it would make sense to me!
the problem is that the stimulus checks are not...
"compliments of Obama." He is not footing the bill. The tax payers are, one way or another. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
McCain won't vote for stimulus as it
Sen. John McCain, Obama's opponent in the November presidential contest, said he did not believe the stimulus package did enough to create jobs.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28840572/
What! The current stimulus plan
I heard about Hollywood wanting money and I did not believe it, but furniture? You gotta be kidding me! Can I have a new couch too and a new desk for my computer?
The GOP want to get rid of:
Meanwhile, House Republican leaders put out a list of more than 30 "wasteful" provisions in the Senate version of the stimulus, including:
• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion pictures
• $650 million for the digital television (DTV) converter box coupon program
• $248 million for furniture at the new Department of Homeland Security headquarters
• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees
Non-refundable tax rebates means every $1.00 spent creates $1.02 in economic activity. 2 freaking cents (makes sense to the pubs.....I guess)
Infrastructure - every dollar spent equals $1.59 in economic activity (bridges, roads, etc.)
Food stamps (which the pubs want to cut out of the bill) - every dollar spent equals $1.73 in economic activity. This is the single most productive stimulus we have. Food stamps will get SPENT, unlike tax rebates.
If the pubs have their way, the bill will be 42% tax cuts which will not benefit job creation or improve the economy. They want to fail. Why? And you all call your senators to support this? If it gets pushed through like this, you have only yourselves to blame when everything goes to helll. You can't blame Obama for this cluster.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned supporters Tuesday that the $828 billion stimulus package is “anti-religious.”
In an e-mail that was also posted on his blog ahead of the Senate’s passage, Huckabee wrote: “The dust is settling on the ‘bipartisan’ stimulus bill and one thing is clear: It is anti-religious.”
The former Republican presidential candidate pointed to a provision in both the House and Senate versions banning higher education funds in the bill from being used on a “school or department of divinity.”
“You would think the ACLU drafted this bill,” Huckabee said. “For all of the talk about bipartisanship, this Congress is blatantly liberal.”
“Emily’s List, radical environmental groups, etc. all have a seat at the decision making table in Washington these days,” he continued. “Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are in charge and they are working with an equally ‘progressive’ President Obama (remember his voting record is more liberal than Ted Kennedy!).”
In the e-mail, Huckabee concedes that there is little that conservatives can do in the near term, but advocated mobilization to defeat those “masquerading as ‘conservative Democrats.’”
“This is the opening round of the Democrats’ campaign for big government,” he wrote. “We cannot afford to sit round one out, because if we do, they will only become more emboldened and their grab for power more audacious and damaging to our country and our freedoms.”
I used the last economic stimulus check
It was costing me about $25 in quarters every time I went to the laudromat. Not to mention gasoline and time spent not typing. I used the $600 to buy myself a portable washing machine (attaches to sink in kitchen when in use) and a portable drier. They use very little electricity. Washer uses very little water (good thing, now that we're in a major drought), and only a teaspoon of detergent per load. So it's nice to no longer have to pay at the pump and at the 'mat!
Lots of ways to cut down costs and giving our money to the government in taxes. I now pay all my bills online. Costs me nothing. Saves me a stamp (the price of which is going up AGAIN this spring), and the use of a check that i had to pay to have printed.
If they want to send me another $400, I'm sure not gonna complain. As a single renter with no kids, I have ZERO tax breaks. Last year, the I overpaid and Calif. OWED me $300. Then they very conveniently 're-figured' my taxes, and sent me a letter saying I actually made LESS MONEY than I had put on my return, and by their calculations, they didn't owe me anything. (???) If I made less money, but still overpaid the same amount in taxes, shouldn't they owe me MORE? Needless to say, if I owe them this year, they might just be getting a $300 IOU. They can spend their bailout money collecting it from me.
So agree with you. It is a spending stimulus.
No social security, nothing for the future but debt. I bet a country will be ready to buy us soon. Probably China, Iran, and Russia just waiting to buy us and take over. Shoot, probably it is in the stimulus bill because NOT ONE PERSON HAS HAD TIME TO READ IT AND GOVERNMENT PASSED IT. HOW STUPID!!!!!!!!
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