It's taking a long time for this thing to sink in to a lot of Americans, but this Obama spending bill is not a stimulus bill. It's nothing more than good old-fashioned Democrat big-government spending on steroids. Below is the list broken into segments. You have got to ask yourself, how will some of this stimulate the economy. Below are just the main breakdowns.
STIMULUS FOR THE GOVERNMENT - Apparently the entire capital is a shambles | ||
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AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT
[Sources: Associated Press: Highlights of Senate economic stimulus plan; January 23, 2009; WSJ: Stimulus Package Unveiled; January 16, 2009; Committee on Appropriations: January 15, 2009]
Energy
$32 billion: Funding for "smart electricity grid" to reduce waste
$16 billion: Renewable energy tax cuts and a tax credit for research and development on energy-related work, and a multiyear extension of renewable energy production tax credit
$6 billion: Funding to weatherize modest-income homes
Total: $42 billion - For special interest groups. One of the many promises that Obama had to keep. A colossal waste of money that will not accomplish anything but feed into the environmental myth.
Science and Technology
$10 billion: Science facilities
$6 billion: High-speed Internet access for rural and underserved areas
Total: $16 billion - Underserved? IE: No one lives there? Not sure about this one.
Infrastructure
$30 billion: Transportation projects
$31 billion: Construction and repair of federal buildings and other public infrastructure
$19 billion: Water projects
$10 billion: Rail and mass transit projects
Total $90 billion - Wow, this is a sackfull of money for busy work? Are these more roads to nowhere? OK so some of this may create jobs but what about the private sector? What about the housing problems?
Education
$41 billion: Grants to local school districts
$79 billion: State fiscal relief to prevent cuts in state aid
$21 billion: School modernization ($15.6 billion to increase the Pell grant by $500; $6 billion for higher education modernization)
Total $141 billion - How will this stimulate the economy. Or maybe it's yet again pandering to yet another special interest group called the teachers union.
Health Care
$39 billion: Subsidies to health insurance for unemployed; providing coverage through Medicaid
$87 billion: Help to states with Medicaid
$20 billion: Modernization of health-information technology systems
$4.1 billion: Preventative care
Total 150.1 billion - Wow, I can't breathe. Now before you think this is great, just remember that these programs are already allotted BILLIONS already. How does this stimulate the economy? And we now find out that a great portion of this money will be going to....Planned Parenthood for the funding of contraceptives and for abortions. YET another constituent that Obama has to pander to.
*NOTE - This was rescinded after the VIDEO of Pelosi admitting this on air.
Jobless Benefits
43 billion for increased unemployment benefits and job training.
$39 billion to support those who lose their jobs by helping them to pay the cost of keeping their employer provided healthcare under COBRA and providing short-term options to be covered by Medicaid.
$20 billion to increase the food stamp benefit by over 13% in order to help defray rising food costs.
Total 102 billion - Some of this I can understand because there are so many out of work. But you know this doesn't stimulate the economy but prolongs the problem because all this money just enables people to stay on unemployment. This money could do so much more.
Taxes
*$500 per worker, $1,000 per couple tax cut for two years, costing about $140 billion.
**Alert*Alert***Alert***
***ENTITLEMENT**ENTITLEMENT***ENTITLEMENT***
This is why Obama got elected because he promised this to all of the people that they would get this goody bag of money. REMEMBER that not everyone pays INCOME tax so that means....A free check for those that don't pay taxes!!! In other words more pandering.
*Greater access to the $1,000-per-child tax credit for the working poor. Well what about the WORKING anyone?
*Expansion of the earned-income tax credit to include families with three children
*A $2,500 college tuition tax credit.
*Repeal of a requirement that a $7,500 first-time homebuyer tax credit be paid back over time.
*An infusion of cash into money-losing companies by allowing them to claim tax credits on past profits dating back five years instead of two.
*Bonus depreciation for businesses investing in new plants and equipment
*Doubling of the amount small businesses can write off for capital investments and new equipment purchases.
*Allowing businesses to claim a tax credit for hiring disconnected youth and veterans
Unbelievably, the bill also calls for tax credits for employers who hire so-called "disconnected youth," defined as people between the ages of 16 and 25 who have neither attended school nor held a job in the past six months, and who lack basic employment skills. According to Rangel's Website, employers who hire these kids for at least 400 hours can claim a $2500 tax credit. So now it seems that to make yourself attractive to a potential employer, you have to drop out of school.
For a further additional amount for ‘Community Development Fund,’ $4,190,000,000, to be used for neighborhood stabilization activities related to emergency assistance for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes as authorized under division B, title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (Public Law 110–289), of which—
“(1) not less than $3,440,000,000 shall be allocated by a competition for which eligible entities shall be States, units of general local government, and nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities[.]”
“(2) up to $750,000,000 shall be awarded by competition to nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities to provide community stabilization assistance […]” SEE MORE
A campaign promise that Obama intends to keep. Pandering to the same organization spawned from the Weather Underground that has committed acts of wholesale fraud in this country. An organization that had lobbied the Democrats WAY back in Carter's time to create the Community Reinvestment Act. They harassed banks into poor lending practices that made non qualifying people get into houses that they couldn't afford. Well eventually the notes came due and bam we are now in an economic turndown, kept hidden and lied to us, WE the people by the Democrats who contrived to get Obama in the office by causing this economic mess.
There is no doubt for those that have studied this very carefully, he wishes to enable ACORN, his own personal army to survive with tax payers money to continue to commit voter fraud on a massive scale. To top things off all of this was contrived by the Democrats to get Obama in.
Think on the FACTS. Bush has been out of power for 2 years. Congress has been run by the Democrats for the past 2 years. Bush was a lameduck 10 months out. Look at what happened in the past 10 months before Nov. 11th? Gas prices soar through the roof with the Democrats stopping any chance of drilling. The threat of Obama destroying the coal industry and then all of the sudden, "THE SKY IS FALLING!" We need this bailout RIGHT NOW! All of this is so contrived it's not even funny.
LINK Of course, it wouldn’t be a liberal wish list if it didn’t include something for ACORN, and sure enough, there is $5.2 billion for community-development block grants and “neighborhood stabilization activities,” which ACORN is eligible to apply for.
“Summary:
$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
$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”
Summary:
$15 billion for business-loss carry-backs
$145 billion for “Making Work Pay” tax credits
$83 billion for the earned income credit
STIMULUS FOR THE GOVERNMENT - Apparently the entire capital is a shambles
The stimulus package is packed with approximately $7 billion worth of federal building projects, including $34 million to fix up the Commerce Department, $500 million for improvements to National Institutes of Health facilities, and $44 million for repairs at the Department of Agriculture. The Agriculture Department would also get $350 million for new computers—the better to calculate all the new farm subsidies in the bill (see “Pure pork” below).
Summary:
$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
INCOME TRANSFERS
A big chunk of the stimulus package is designed not to create wealth but to spread it around. It contains $89 billion in Medicaid extensions and $36 billion in expanded unemployment benefits—and this is in addition to the state-budget bailout.
Summary:
$89 billion for Medicaid
$30 billion for COBRA insurance extension
$36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
$20 billion for food stamps
The stimulus bill adds another $850 million for Amtrak, the railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 10 years.
This bill provides additional subsidies for farmers, including $150 million for producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish.
Summary:
$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”
Open up the section of the stimulus devoted to renewable energy and what you find is anti-stimulus: billions of dollars allocated to money-losing technologies that have not proven cost-efficient despite decades of government support. “Green energy” is not a new idea, Riedl points out. The government has poured billions into loan-guarantees and subsidies and has even mandated the use of ethanol in gasoline, to no avail.
Summary:
$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
One of the ugliest aspects of the stimulus package is a bailout for spendthrift state legislatures. The state-bailout fund has a built-in provision to channel the money to the Democrats’ most reliable group of campaign donors: the teachers’ unions.
Given that the fastest-growing segment of public-school expense is administrators’ salaries—not teachers’ pay, not direct spending on classroom learning—this is a requirement that has almost nothing to do with ensuring high-quality education and everything to do with ensuring that the school bureaucracy continues to be a cash cow for Democrats.
The State Fiscal Stabilization Fund is problematic in that it creates a moral hazard by punishing the thrifty to subsidize the extravagant. California. Who pays for the state bailout? Savers will pay to bail out spenders, and future generations will pay to bail out the undisciplined present.
In sum, this is an $80 billion boondoggle that is going to reward the irresponsible and help state governments evade a needed reordering of their financial priorities. And the money has to come from somewhere: At best, we’re just shifting money around from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, robbing a relatively prudent Cheyenne to pay an incontinent Albany. If we want more ants and fewer grasshoppers, let the prodigal governors get a little hungry.
Summary:
$79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund
