Stimulus Check-in

Back in January, I posted a column from Michelle Malkin that included, in part:

To paraphrase a previous Democrat administration: It's the timing, stupid. Keep in mind that the Democrats' stimulus timetable pushed through the House last fall proposed $34 billion in new, "ready to go" infrastructure spending — only $9.8 billion (30 percent) of which could be spent in 2009. As writer Brian Faughnan points out:

"While it's unclear so far exactly how much infrastructure spending will be included in Obama's stimulus package, it will clearly run into the hundreds of billions. As Democrats broaden their definition of projects that are 'ready to go,' they will by definition slow the rate at which funds are spent. When President Obama signs his stimulus bill into law, it will already be 5 months further into the recession than when [the Congressional Budget Office] reported on the last Democratic bill — and thus 5 months along toward being wasteful and counterproductive spending. He will also be signing a much larger bill, with a much smaller percentage of 'front-loaded' spending."

Moreover, despite Obama's earnest-seeming pledge to block all earmarks, there will be an inevitable lard-up of the stimulus. When has there not? Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled openness to the plan over the weekend as long as the GOP gets nominal input and kabuki hearings. The lard-up will guarantee that future capital is diverted to superfluous pork projects ("green jobs") and away from productive private enterprise. Instead of basic roads and bridges, infrastructure spending will go to bloated unions overseeing pie-in-the-sky construction projects like the $30 billion-plus high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which California officials fully expect to be funded.

Bottom line: Obama's prescription for economic pain will at most be useless in encouraging short-term growth, while ensuring anemic longer-term growth for the next decade (and beyond) at the expense of Obama's kids and my kids and yours.

Now, the Washington Times reports:

The White House on Wednesday moved the goalposts for judging success of President Obama's stimulus spending bill, saying they now want to have 70 percent of the money spent before 2011 - three months later, and 5 percent less, than the goal they set out during the congressional debate over the stimulus bill.

In a report to Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who the president put in charge of overseeing the stimulus efforts, lays out the new goal: "We remain ahead of schedule in most programs and, due to efficiencies and sound management, many projects are coming in under budget. As you know, we set a goal of outlaying 70 percent of Recovery Act expenditures by the end of 2010."

But during the debate on Capitol Hill, the White House repeatedly said their goal was to spend the money within 18 months of passage which works out to before Oct. 1, 2010, which is the end of the next fiscal year.

"We believe, looking at the package as it exists, that 75 percent of the money will be spent out in an 18-month period of time with great stimulative effect," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in January.

The rate of spending was a crucial issue during the congressional debate, as Republicans and some Democrats said the bill should be used to get the economy going in the near-term, not to become a vehicle for adding long-term government spending.

Mr. Biden's new projection is lower than the Congressional Budget Office, the government's chief scorekeeper, predicted in February, when it said 74 percent of the money would be spent by the end of fiscal year 2010.

Go figure.  It's hard to beat being 100% correct.

It's not about saving jobs.  The Obama administration maintains they've created 150,000 jobs so far, but they've not shown how they arrived at that number.  On top of that, the basic unemployment numbers indicate a loss of over 2 million jobs!  My calculator tells me to call bull on that equation.

Reality has proved the prediction that this is nothing more than an attempt to entrench Democrat power for as long as possible by buying special interest votes with taxpayer dollars.  I like Hot Air's analysis:

Republicans warned that the package passed by Congress was too unwieldy to be effective.  The real stimulus items only amounted to a small percentage of Porkulus.  It mainly consisted of long-term Democratic Party agenda items, none of which could roll out quickly and none of which would stimulate the economy in the short run.  The GOP wanted to slow down the process to split the real stimulus into a fast-track bill of around $180 billion and leave the rest for debate, which would have allowed the government to handle the stimulus with more efficiency.

Once again, the Republicans have been vindicated by the results.  The economy has not been stimulated; retail sales continue to decline, housing foreclosures continue to skyrocket, and unemployment keeps moving up.  The latter will get even worse if the states don't get the stimulus money they need to keep bureaucratic jobs open.

But what does the administration say about this?  They claim everything's hunky-dory, while Joe Biden is happy to play with his toy choo-choos:

Obama administration officials, however, say the pace of the stimulus program is on schedule, and even if the federal checks are not yet in the mail the effects of the stimulus are beginning to reverberate: the promise of the federal money has been enough to get states to start construction work and to retain some jobs that were in jeopardy.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who writes in a report on the stimulus bill to be released this week that it remains "ahead of schedule in most programs," said in a telephone interview Tuesday that the bill was helping people grapple with the recession, getting money to the states and into the economy, and laying a foundation for long-term aspirations like high-speed rail.

High-speed rail will wind up being the poster project for this administration; it will be much like John Murtha's subsidized airport that almost no one uses.  We'll spend billions of dollars to make trains arrive a few minutes earlier than they do now, with the same inadequate number of riders, requiring even more government subsidies in the future.

It's time to put some real grown-ups back in charge...the country can't take a whole lot more of this Democrat madness.  We need a change from the Change, and fast.

There's my two cents.