Let's take a look.
For this beast to stimulate the economy, it would have to happen fast, right? And, it would have to prompt legitimate long-term growth and job creation, right? It does neither of those.
From Rep. Mark Kirk on the House Appropriations Committee:
If you look at this, it's a MASSIVE amount of taxpayer money thrown at very few things that will actually help the economy, and most of those are marginal help at best. Obama and the Democrats will be in complete control of the 'oversight' that will manage this money, and most of it will go to help liberal agenda items and vague projects that won't happen soon.Here are some things you should know about the bill before our Committee today:
A. Large Taxpayer Cost Per Job Saved
Combined with the provisions of the Ways & Means Committee, this legislation will cost taxpayers $825 billion and claims to save "3.7 million" jobs. That means the government will save each job at an average cost of $222,972. Combined with the previous $700 billion bailout bill, the cost per job saved by recent congressional spending is $412,162 per job saved. On average, the private sector created 2007 jobs at a cost of $50,283 per job.
B. Most Items Are Unrelated to Economic Stimulus
The legislation contains 152 separate appropriations. Only 34 line items have estimates in the committee report estimating jobs saved. 117 appropriations have no job saving estimate at all.
C. Major Job Producing Items Cost $65 Billion
Just 11 appropriations out of the 152 in the bill generate over 1,846,800 jobs at a total cost of $65 billion. These programs that have the highest payoff are some of the lower cost items:
1. Highway Infrastructure Investment (835,000 jobs, $35,928 each) $30B
2. Clean Water State Revolving Fund (282,000 jobs, $21,276 each) $6B
3. Transit Capital Assistance (165,000 jobs, $36,363 each) $6B
4. Child Care Development Block Grant (125,000 jobs, $16,000 each) $2B
5. Weatherization Assistance (104,000 jobs, $59,615 each) $6.2B
6. Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (94,000 jobs, $21,276 each) $2B
7. Grants-in-Aid for Airports (75,000 jobs, $40,000 each) $3B
8. Head Start (50,000 jobs, $42,000 each) $2.1B
9. State Energy Program (41,000 jobs, $82,926 each) $3.4B
10. Energy Efficiency & Conservation Grants (40,800 jobs, $85,784 each) $3.5B
11. Capital Investment Grants (35,000 jobs, $28,571 each) $1B
D. Bill Language Requires Extremely Fast Spending
Under Title I of the bill, all formula grants must be allocated within 30 days and all discretionary grants must be allocated within 90 days. This will require unprecedented speeds in federal spending.
E. Few and Friendly Economists Cited in Report, CBO Ignored
CBO reported that of the $550 billion in spending approved by this bill, only $26 billion will be spent in FY09. Of the $30 billion appropriated for highways, only $3 billion will be spent in FY09 and $4.2 billion in FY10. Over $60 billion of spending in the bill will not be spent during President Obama's first term. CBO's comment on the bill is not mentioned in the committee report.
The Committee report does cite the work of only three economists supporting this legislation: President Obama's Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer, Vice President Biden's economic advisor, Jared Bernstein, and Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com. Zandi is a political contributor to Sen. John McCain and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA). Zandi is quoted no less than six times.
F. Despite $550B in Spending, No Funds for Troops in Field
Despite spending $550 billion, no funds are provided for troops in Afghanistan or Iraq. The Defense Department estimates they will need $60-$80 billion soon to support immediate combat operations.
G. Funds Specifically Prohibited for Casinos, Aquariums and Pools, Not Bars
The text of the bill specifically prohibits funding from this bill to support "casinos, gaming institutions, aquariums, zoos, golf courses or swimming pools." The prohibition does not mention bars or the pornography industry.
H. No Bipartisan Oversight
The bill creates an Accountability and Transparency Board. All board members are appointees of the President.
I. No Analysis of Unprecedented Trillion Borrowing Triggered by the Bill
There is no mention of the borrowing needed to finance this bill. CBO projects that if this legislation is passed, the federal government will need to borrow over $2 Trillion in the coming months. This will increase the public debt from $6 Trillion to $8 Trillion in a matter of weeks. No bond market has ever handled so much debt sold so quickly.
J. Very High Cost Broadband Provided at Taxpayer Expense
The bill creates a rural broadband program at a cost of $2.8 billion to serve 3.6 million people. Under these terms, the bill will provide broadband to rural (but not urban or suburban Americans) at a taxpayer cost of $784 each.
K. Funding Provided for Programs About to be Out-of-Date
The bill appropriates $650 million for digital-to-analog converter boxes despite the impending deadline of the program, announced two years ago of February 17, 2009.
Not much of a stimulus, huh?
But that's not all. The Heritage Foundation has renamed this the Pelosi-Reid-Obama Debt Plan, for good reason:
A lot of people fear doing nothing, and that's understandable. But doing something isn't the same as doing the right thing. What Obama and the Democrats are trying to do is the absolute wrong thing for America.With countless news stories, papers, editorials and experts giving their view of why Congress should or shouldn't enact the Pelosi-Reid-Obama Debt Plan, we thought it would be helpful to give you a short index of why spending does not equal stimulus.
HIGH COST TO AMERICAN TAXPAYERS
- After Congress appropriates the FY'09 omnibus bill, they may have spent over $1.4 Trillion in less than one month!
- The current "stimulus bill" will be the LARGEST SPENDING BILL EVER enacted by Congress, making the New Deal look small, accounting for inflation.
- The "Stimulus" Bills Your Family – $825 Billion is equivalent to borrowing $10,520 from EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA. This money has to be paid back.
- If all families were asked to equally shoulder the burden of $825 Billon, this debt would be equivalent to what they roughly spend on food, clothing, and health care in an entire year.
- If Government Spending solved recessions, we would never have recessions.BAD IDEAS – "THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE"
The hidden liberal policy agenda inside the 'stimulus bill'…Over $142 Billion in Federal education funds: Nearly double the total outlays for the Dept. of Education in 2007 – making good on Reid-Pelosi-Obama education promises to the NEA.
$87 Billion Medicaid bailout: Medicaid is funded by a formula that matches state spending levels with federal dollars. If we keep bailing states out, they will have every incentive to continue irresponsible spending. Fiscally responsible taxpayers in Indiana are now paying for fiscally irresponsible bureaucrats in Illinois.
Expanded Medicaid coverage and SCHIP: Reid-Pelosi-Obama are enacting a nationalized health care policy with no debate. The government will soon be responsible for more health care spending than the private sector, i.e. socialized medicine.
Green Jobs?: The myth of 'green jobs' merely means replacing one job lost, with a new job that fits the left's agenda. It is a zero sum game. More than doubling spending, the stimulus also has over $35 billion for the Dept. of Energy. DOE's current budget is $23.8 billion.
Family Planning and birth control for children, immigrants and the wealthy, which could also be used as a backdoor to allow federal funding of abortions. How is this stimulus?
Redistribution: Refundable Tax Credits for people who don't pay taxes.
Pork Spending: Digital TV Coupons ($650 Million), Gov't Cars ($600 Million), Nat'l Endowment for the Arts ($50 Million), Repairs to National Mall ($200 Million, including $21m for sod).BAD RESULTS
No Jobs: While they have not been able to support these claims, Pelosi/Obama promise between 3 & 4 million jobs, yet House Tax Committee staff can't estimate even ONE job will be created.
Ineffective: The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 52% of the spending in the 'stimulus bill' can even be spent by the end of FY'10. Well short of the 75% benchmark set by President Obama."We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work." – FDR's Treasury Sec. Henry Morgenthau Jr., architect of the New Deal.
BETTER IDEAS AND RESULTS
- Make the 2001 and 2003 Tax Cuts permanent, instead of raising taxes in 2011; Reduce Marginal Tax Rates for Individuals and Businesses by 10% creating new jobs. Adopting just this one proposal would create between 500,000 and 1 million jobs in one year.
- Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax & reduce the Death Tax to 15% ($5 mil. individual exclusion) Enact long-term reforms and budgets for entitlement spending., putting long-term obligations from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, front and center in the budget process.
- Assess and enforce long term spending rules in Congress. Get us out of debt!
- Go to Heritage.org for more ideas and ways to avoid giving Americans a debt they didn't create.
Thomas Sowell has the absolute best column up at Investor's Business Daily to explain what's going on in simple terms (emphasis mine):
Bottom line: Obama and the Democrats are sinking the American ship, knowingly destroying the economy simply to put themselves in a position of permanent power. They apparently believe that once they have absolute control they'll be able to fix things up enough to keep Americans happy (or, at least, just short of outright revolt). The scam is that, once they have absolute power, they will not have much of a country left to fix, nor will they have any incentive to fix things for any of us peons who aren't rich elites. Even if they did, and even if they wanted to, their core principles prevent them from ever enacting any of the things that would bring about a meaningful recovery, anyway.Everyone is talking about how much money the government is spending, but very little attention is being paid to where they are spending it or what they are buying with it.
The government is putting money into banks, even when the banks don't want it, in hopes that the banks will put it into circulation.
But the latest statistics show that banks are lending even less money now than they were before the government dumped all that cash on them.
Even if it had worked, putting cash into banks, in hopes that they would put it into circulation, seems a rather roundabout way of doing things, especially when the staggering sums of money involved are being justified as an "emergency" measure.
Spending money for infrastructure is another time-consuming way of dealing with what is called an immediate crisis. Infrastructure takes forever to plan, debate and go through all sorts of hearings and adjudications before getting approval to build from all the regulatory agencies involved.
Out of $355 billion newly appropriated, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that only $26 billion will be spent this fiscal year and only $110 billion by the end of 2010.
Using long, drawn-out processes to put money into circulation to meet an emergency is like mailing a letter to the fire department to tell it that your house is on fire.
If you cut taxes tomorrow, people would have more money in their next paycheck, and it would probably be spent by the time they got that paycheck, through increased credit card purchases beforehand.
If all this sound and fury in Washington was about getting an economic crisis behind us, tax cuts could do that a lot faster.
None of this is rocket science. And Washington politicians are not all crazy, even if sometimes it looks that way. Often, what they say makes no sense because what they claim to be doing is not what they are actually doing.
No matter how many times President Obama tells us that these "extraordinary times" call for "swift action," the kind of economic policies he is promoting take effect very slowly, no matter how quickly the legislation is rushed through Congress. It is the old Army game of hurry up and wait.
If the Beltway politicians aren't really trying to solve this crisis as quickly as they could, what are they trying to do?
One important clue may be a recent statement by the president's chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, that "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste."
This is the kind of cynical revelation that sometimes slips out, despite all the political pieties and spin.
Crises have long been seen as great opportunities to expand the federal government's power while the people are too scared to object and before any opposition can get organized.
That is why there is such haste to do things that will take effect slowly.
What are the Beltway politicians buying with all the hundreds of billions of dollars they are spending?
They are buying what politicians are most interested in — power.
In the name of protecting the taxpayers' investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank and, before it is all over with, all sorts of other people how to do the work they specialize in, and for which members of Congress have no competence, much less expertise.
This administration and Congress are in a position to do what Franklin Roosevelt did during the Great Depression of the 1930s — use a crisis of the times to create new institutions that will last for generations.
To this day, we are still subsidizing millionaires in agriculture because farmers were having a tough time in the 1930s.
We have the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) taking reckless chances in the housing market that have blown up in our faces today, because FDR decided to create a new federal housing agency in 1938.
Who knows what bright ideas this administration will turn into permanent institutions for our children and grandchildren to try to cope with?
I cannot stress enough to you how critically important it is for our future and for the future of our children and grandchildren to STOP THIS NOW. Send this information to everyone you know, and encourage them to read it and think about it. Then call and e-mail your Senators and Representative (Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter) and tell them this is a pork bill rather than a 'stimulus' plan and should be killed immediately. Then keep calling, day after day.
Those of you who know me know that I am rarely given to exaggeration, but I truly believe that we are at a tipping point. America as we know it -- free, prosperous, and filled with opportunity -- is hanging by a thin thread, and if Obama and the Democrats get their way, they will shove us off the cliff into an economic abyss of epic proportions.
The only thing that can stop them is sustained, informed outrage on the part of the American people. That means YOU. And it means everyone you know. An informed and outraged public stopped amnesty just two years ago, so don't think that we can't have a similar cumulative effect on our spineless politicians with this, too. But make no mistake, it will take effort.
Just ask yourself this: how much is is a free and prosperous America worth to you? To your children? To your grandchildren?
There's my two cents.
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