Saturday, Feb 7th - Zero: Obama's "Stimulus" Bill

I never blog on the weekend, but this thing has me so fired up I couldn't help but put it out there. If you feel even remotely the same as I do, please, please, go to google, search for your state's senators and congressmen and send them an email or call them and tell them NOT to pass this $937 BILLION TURD!!!!!!

There is only one reason Mr. President is getting his panties in wad about passing this thing so fast: the longer they delay, the more details are leaking out, and the more this thing STINKS! Apparently by "Change" he meant standing behind the podium and getting pissy with us AMERICANS who dare to question his Rescue Plan..

Here's a few of the nastier nuggets -

Let's start with $3 billion for "prevention and wellness programs, including $335 million for "education and prevention" of sexually transmitted diseases. FRC reports that recent government expenditures in this area include a transgender beauty pageant in San Francisco that advertised available HIV testing. Then there was the event called "Got Love? — Flirt/Date/Score" that taught how "to flirt with greater finesse." Does this strike anyone as a plan to jump-start the economy, instead of someone's sex life?

The Senate (and the House) somehow think it's a "stimulus" provision to give an additional $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts. Kiff Gallagher, a former Clinton staffer, protested to the Los Angeles Times that the arts "get the shaft" in spending battles because their impact seems fuzzy. "But the new president shows that a higher social, empathic intelligence is required to solve hard-core issues."

If we have enough "empathic intelligence," we might imagine how we fix the mortgage-banking mess with more spending on ballet.

On the tax-cut side, the Senate bill included a tax break worth up to $246 million over 11 years for outside investors in big-budget Hollywood movie projects. "Tax cuts for the wealthy" are OK apparently — as long as the wealthy are making movies. But bad publicity and pork-busting Sen. Tom Coburn pressed the Senate (including 13 Democrats) to scrap the tax break.

The "green" lobby is thrown a pile of bones in the "stimulus" bill, including $10 million for bike and walking trails, $200 million for plug-in electric car stations, $400 million for climate change research by NASA scientists, $600 million to buy new "green" cars for government workers, $800 million for more cleanup of "Superfund" pollution sites, and $1.5 billion for the construction of new "green" school buildings.

Then there's just plain self-dealing by the Democrats. The Washington Times reported on a $2.25 billion provision in the House bill for the National Parks — almost equal to the National Park Service's total yearly budget, and a eyebrow-raising increase of almost three times the $802 million the Senate Appropriations Committee put in its "stimulus" bill. The chief lobbyist for the National Parks Conservation Association is Craig Obey, the son of House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey.

- $6.2 billion for home weatherization
- $50 million for port modernization and water and wastewater infrastructure needs in Guam
- $100 million for children to learn green construction
- $800 million for Amtrack
- $150 million for the Smithsonian Institute
- $198 million for U.S. military benefits for Filipinos who fought for the U.S. during WWII
- $75 million for "smoking cessation activities"
- $87 million for the "design of a new polar icebreaker"
- $335 million for HIV/STD screening
- $14 million for the Accountability and Transparency Boards TRAVEL EXPENSES!!

Don't take my word for it, people. Go to www.readthestimulus.org.

You know the real shame of this? There is a lot of REALLY good stuff in this bill. It could be effective. But the unbelievable self-interest of the MORONS in DC is completely ruining it.

To put it in perspective, this bill equals out to $5205 for every person in the United States over the age of 18. That is how much more YOU are going into debt so the MORONS can make their lobbyist buddies happy. After all, if the lobbyists aren't happy, the MORONS can't keep getting their free vacations in the French Riviera, or buy those vacation homes in Aspen...

Peace, Love, and GOD,
Tracy