Dems’ Stimulus Bill Has Hidden Left Agenda
The House stimulus package moving through committee illustrates how the left is using the economic stimulus bill as cover to achieve their long held desire to permanently increase the size of the federal government, charges a new report by The Heritage Foundation.
“It’s time to wake up. This stimulus bill is nothing but the permanent implementation of the pet projects of the House and Senate. There is nothing temporary about any of the spending increases in this bill. They are all designed to make the American people more dependent on the federal government. And there is nothing stimulating about that,” charge the report’s authors.
The Foundation’s analysts argue that the proof is in the pudding.
On top of the basic $79 billion education bailout, for instance, the House bill also includes expanded spending for a variety of programs – bringing the total education stimulus taxpayer bill to $142 billion.
There is $1 billion for Technology Education, $1.5 billion for Pell Grants, $6 billion for higher education institutions, $2.1 billion for Head Start, $2.5 billion for the National Science Foundation, and $2 billion in Child Care Development Block Grants.
“Are any of these spending increases even intended to be temporary?” rhetorically ask the Heritage analysts. “Can you possibly imagine Democrats in Congress standing up to cut Head Start and Pell Grant funding in two years?”
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Republicans Unveil Alternative Stimulus Package
Republicans have fiercely opposed a Democratic bill that comprises 550 billion dollars in spending and 275 billion dollars in tax cuts, charging it is too big, would do little to restore growth, feeds too many pet projects, and kicks in too late.
But “there’s unanimity that our economy needs help,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said at the White House after laying out the Republican initiative before Obama.
The Republican plan relies on cutting lowest individual tax rates from 15 percent to 10 percent and from 10 percent to five percent, tax deductions for small businesses, and a ban on tax increases to pay for new spending — which they say should be paid for by cutting spending in other areas.
It would also make unemployment benefits tax free, and offer a home-buyers credit for those who make a minimum down payment of five percent, according to a statement from the Republican leadership.
“At the end of the day, government can’t solve this problem. The American people have to solve it. And the way they can solve it is if we allow them to keep more of the money that they earn,” said Boehner. Read More
I keep seeing this on alot of web pages “Do You Want Barack Obama to Succeed?” and my answer is no I do not want Obama to succeed with the Big Government spending bill that will make ever American more dependent on the Obama government. In other words a socialist government. What do I intend to do about it, I will keep blogging the real stories in hopes that we the American people can vote out congressmen that vote along with Obama and his socialist agenda! To all you conservatives out there, put all you have into letting everyone know what the democrats are up to. Get the truth out, by blogging, emails, snail mail, phone and at get togethers. Call, write and email your congressmen today demanding that they also fight along side you to stop this Obama big time spending!We must fight back!
LINKS:
(1) Nothing Temporary About This Stimulus Spending
The House bill perfectly demonstrates how the left is using the economic stimulus bill as cover to accomplish their long held desire to permanently increase the size of the federal government, with little or no benefit to the American taxpayer.
(2) “It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a slaughter of the innocents.”
This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence – la trahison des clercs – in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all right on the night.
The implication seems to be that it’s unpatriotic or “un-American” not to support the Prez. (Well, sometimes the connection is right out there, not just implied.) This rule, I suppose, took effect Tuesday. Prior to Tuesday, not supporting the president was the highest form of patiriotism … or something. And some of our more naive citizens seem to think that every president is entitled to general support until he shows himself unworthy in one way or another. But this is wrong, too. Anyone who paid attention during the campaign (a minority of voters, sure) knows that, insofar as Obama is a principled politician, his principles are radical and leftist — statist, collectivist, radically egalitarian, race-conscious — and that his team is not at all averse to intimidation, by crowd action or by government agency, as a tactic. We are, at the moment, closer to rapid and politically irreversible oppression by the state than we have been since the 1930′s. The conceit that Bush was somehow a threat to our liberty was always silly. The idea that Obama — with his partially hidden agenda of big government , “hate” laws, redistribution, punitive taxes, “green” laws, gun control, media “fairness,” and so on — is just a benign reformer is even sillier.
boythatwasalongone
Here’s Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit)
This is not so much a stimulus, as a massive transfer of wealth from the politically unconnected to the politically connected.
And the “connected” include more than the bankers-in-despair Friends of Barney or the local pork hustlers that every congressman lives with. Also connected, and “stimulated,” are the teachers’ unions, state bureaucrats at all levels (to include those in the soon-to-be-expanded health care regime), scare scientists and green lobbyists in general, the abortion lobby, the arts lobby, and, of course, people on the dole … the progressive base, in other words, the people who want to “remake” America in order to feel better about themselves and to make the rest of us pay attention to them (and also to make more money).
So lukemcgook, is Atlas ready to shrug?
Well, depends. Who’s “Atlas”? There aren’t any John Galts in the world; there never were. (Personally, I’m thankful for this, as I’ve always thought Galt an insufferable blowhard.) It may make sense to talk about an “Atlas class,” those of us who produce goods and services valued by others. Most government workers, many of the instructors and most of the educrats in the government schools and the universities, many in the legal profession, an ever larger fraction of media workers — these are people who do not produce value, or who produce value only insofar as the state creates new preferences to be hurdled or new rents to be sought. Obama is their champion, and for them he is a godsend. Tell me who your “Atlas” is, and then we’ll talk about what it would mean for him to shrug.
Nice blog, btw.
What Congress is up to, per Mark Steyn
… magically transforming pork into “stimulus” by sticking another three zeroes on the end
Thanks for the compliment!
And yes, I am referring to the “producers” as a class. I know that those people (producers) will always produce, however, all around me I am seeing what might be called a revolt of sorts. A new underground economy as it were. If that were to become widespread then the government and those that suck from the governments teat will have a problem. No tax revenue, or at least greatly diminished milk…
We don’t know how extensive the underground economy is. It’s underground! Sure, other things equal, people will go to greater lengths to avoid taxes where taxes are more burdensome. But taxes (and licensing and enviro regulations and all kinda stuff) vary over states and localities, and what you suspect is going on could be a state/local thing. If the Obama (peace be upon him) raises the federal income tax, will more of the economy be driven underground? Yes, but my hunch is that, where taxes are concerned (as opposed to environmental regs, say), most of the underground are trying to avoid hassles — record-keeping and withholding and so on — rather than the income loss itself, and so will be unaffected when the feds start fiddling brackets and marginal rates.
What I do see happening is this. 1) O and the D’s will be raising taxes, and 2) inflation will take off in a big way. (Have you seen the famous money supply chart yet?) The tax increases will target the rich, where “rich” means “not rich,” and inflation will start bumping people into higher brackets. A lot of Blue state O-blivions will suddenly find themselves paying for their feckless voting behavior. It’ll be like the late 70′s, where the misery index was up in the 20′s. And we all remember fondly the 1980 election, and the 1978 numbers weren’t bad either. So, in short, I don’t think the producer class is ready for the Big Shrug any time soon, but I do expect a lot of voters, producers and parasites both, to be feeling more R-ish in two years. We’ll see.