Obama has said that we are going to have a catastrophe if we do not pass this pork laden stimulus bill. Why is he using scare tactics?
Obama was one to complain about Bush’s spending, but look at the pork in this bill. The items include:
List of all the projects we need or else we will never recover!
$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
$198 million for Filipino World War 2 vets and their families
$300 million for grants to combat violence against women
$2 billion for federal child-care block grants
$6 billion for university building projects
$15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships
$4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24
$1 billion for community-development block grants
$4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”
$650 million for digital-TV coupons
$90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”
$15 billion for business-loss carry-backs
$145 billion for “Making Work Pay” tax credits
$83 billion for the earned income credit
$150 million for the Smithsonian
$34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
$500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities
$44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters
$350 million for Agriculture Department computers
$88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building
$448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters
$600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids
$450 million for NASA (carve-out for “climate-research missions”)
$600 million for NOAA (carve-out for “climate modeling”)
$1 billion for the Census Bureau
$89 billion for Medicaid
$30 billion for COBRA insurance extension
$36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
$20 billion for food stamps
$4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
$850 million for Amtrak
$87 million for a polar icebreaking ship
$1.7 billion for the National Park System
$55 million for Historic Preservation Fund
$7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs”
$150 million for agricultural-commodity purchases
$150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”
$2 billion for renewable-energy research ($400 million for global-warming research)
$2 billion for a “clean coal” power plant in Illinois
$6.2 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program
$3.5 billion for energy-efficiency and conservation block grants
$3.4 billion for the State Energy Program
$200 million for state and local electric-transport projects
$300 million for energy-efficient-appliance rebate programs
$400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments
$1 billion for the manufacturing of advanced batteries
$1.5 billion for green-technology loan guarantees
$8 billion for innovative-technology loan-guarantee program
$2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects
$4.5 billion for electricity grid
$79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund
Do we really need a $87 Million polar ice breaker? How is that going to stimulate the economy? I thought we were having global warming and the polar ice caps are melting. Is this just scare tactics or what?
FU – How is this a false list? This was posted on a web site by one of our press reporters. I cut and pasted.
Yeah, Instead of sitting down with the moderates and hammering out an agreeable "Spending Bill," he’s out there campaigning fear and division. It’s for the reasons you post that many do not support this bill as is. Too much self serving special interest, earmarks and pork.
No…he’s not. Why are the GOP making bogus claims? Many of the things the are complaining about have been removed from the bill! There is less than 1% of the bill being disputed as pork by either side at this point.
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You should be scared.
We are about to sail off the edge.
The Have’s and Have Not’s get farther apart everyday.
It scares me.
Desperation is about to kick in.
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Nope – just call for reason to those who can think
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I GUESS IT IS BETTER THAN SPENDING IT ON WAR AND DESTRUCTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
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Yes and is a terrible thing for someone who is suppose too be President to do.
Obamaa sucks the Big one.
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Because he is the president of fear and not hope. The president of same old crap and not change.
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Someone has been listening to Rush
Rush must not know that the artic STILL freezes
the ship is to keep open lanes in oceans to continue TRADE in these areas
AND for RESEARCH (something Rush has NEVER participated in)
THAT BEING SAID,
The SCARE TACTICS ARE NOTHING LIKE
They are trying to buy yellowcake from Nigerria
we MUST go kill them and get the whole world hating us
AND
if we don’t go against everything America stands for and start torturing people they will swim across the oceans and get us
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Do you ever try to think about how the money proposed for the above projects will fund contractors, developers, planners, builders, attorneys, etc that are involved in the projects? You’re just repeating buzzwords like "pork" because you hear it so much these days. Think about things–it’s a stimulus package. The point is to spend money. Most of those things are worth while in the big picture.
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According to him, we misunderstood. It is a "spending package", it is not to just produce jobs. Just let him spend our money.
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Scare tactics is what the Republicans are using to oppose the bill. Almost every one of the projects you listed will benefit America and its people, short-term and long-term. Hey, I’ve an idea. Instead of investing in America, lets throw the trillion dollars down a rat hole in Iraq.
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Absolutely…all this pork and the news is proud to report that they cut $100billion out. Since when is digital tv conversion a pressing issue. Maybe if people watched less television they would be more productive.
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You left out a whole bunch of stuff 85 billion for welfare reform 200 billion to bail out states that can’t make there budget because they ran business off with taxes 37 billion for campain reform and the list goes on, AT this rate will will spend over half what the national gross product output is, that means for every dollar you work to produce something half will go to this budget plan it’s time to stop this insanity. Call your senator. Tell him to lay off the drugs and booze.
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Yes. I can’t help but to notice the bill has absolutely nothing on how to fund the package.
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I think that higher-ups way more powerful than Obama have engineered the whole collapse, like scientists. The catastrophe of which he speaks is a planned catastrophe. He is just an actor fulfilling his role int it. Obama is the next curse after George W. He will hammer the final nail into the American coffin. George did his best to bankrupt you, but he didn’t go far enough. Stimulus is a word that makes me laugh. How do you stimulate a dying economy with monopoly money? Just look at what he is proposing to spend it on. How does that stimulate anything but a faster death? No, I think that this rookie president, for all of his outward nice qualities, has no idea what he is really doing. He is good at being convincing, but even his winning best cannot hide the fact that the American Empire is on its deathbed. Can you hear the corpse’s raspy breath? Listen!
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Yes, we actually do need a polar ice breaker. That is, if we want to explore our arctic territory for the hydrocarbons conservatives have such a fetish for. Even with the melting of the icecaps, it still freezes over in the winter.
How it will stimulate the economy? Easy:
1. Government approves funding and places order.
2. Order becomes an accounts receivable entry on the books of the contractor.
3. Contractor hires workers to fill the order, and places orders with suppliers and subcontractors.
4. Suppliers and subcontractors hire workers and place orders with their suppliers.
5. Workers get paid and go spend monies.
6. Businesses where aforesaid monies are being spent see new demand, and proceed to place orders with their suppliers, and so on.
Anything else? Because those are almost all worthy spending line-items, and I’d be happy to defend all but the following:
- $15 billion for business-loss carry-backs
- $198 million for Filipino World War 2 vets and their families
- $150 million for agricultural-commodity purchases
- $150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”
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Yeah, Instead of sitting down with the moderates and hammering out an agreeable "Spending Bill," he’s out there campaigning fear and division. It’s for the reasons you post that many do not support this bill as is. Too much self serving special interest, earmarks and pork.
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Stop believing the Repub hype. Their newly unveiled plan is mostly tax cuts, including more corporate tax cuts and capital gains tax cuts. Sure, that impacts most of us…not.
The intent of a package is to get the economy rolling. It can not be limited to road building and bridge repair. Yes, weatherizing progams put folks to work and money is spent in local hardware stores and national chains. Building hybrid cars keeps people working on mfg and technology and gets money to the auto corp. Improving our electrial grid (which is sadly outdated) gets people working. They take that money and go to the market, clothes store, etc.
True, some of the target spending is not necessary, but most of it is! And it’s been proven that tax cuts don’t stimulate the economy. Tax cuts get saved…that’s what I do. Spending money stimulates the economy. Get people working and they spend money!
P.S.: Food stamp benefits and unemployment benefits are necessary for those still unemployed. Some people have been looking for work for months on end.
Edit….The Daily Elitist, I agree.
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