We are governed by a House of Idiocy, peopled by idiotic, big-spending Democrats.
Yeah, I finally said it. I’ve always tried- somewhat- to be nice and bipartisan. I support our president and our Congress because I want them to succeed- obviously, we really need them to. But this is just ridiculous. I totally give up. These idiots- most notably in the House of Representatives- are destroying any serious effort to get our economy back on track quickly and effectively.
Here’s the situation: Democrats command a huge majority in the House of Representatives, so they don’t necessarily have to cooperate with Republicans to get things done- like the stimulus package that was recently passed. Nancy Pelosi, the resident moron of the House, said so herself.
Problem is, President Obama wants to get bipartisan support for the stimulus legislation. After all, one of his big campaign promises- and in my opinion the one most important to “change”- was to end the era of paralyzing partisan hackery in government. Well, thanks to his Democratic spendthrift colleagues in the House, he succeeded in getting the stimulus passed (major victory!), but without a single Republican vote (major defeat- that’s not the change we voted for!). In fact, as Senator Mitch McConnell observed, the only thing bipartisan about the bill was the opposition to it: 11 Democrats joined the 177 Republicans in voting against the bill.
But I digress. The reason why the bill got bipartisan rejections was because Pelosi and her cronies don’t understand the concept of money management. The vast majority of the stimulus money as appropriated by the House will not be spent in the next year. I thought that this situation was urgent? After all, Representative David Obey of Wisconsin, a Democrat and main drafter of the stimulus bill, said, "Another week that we delay is another 100,000 or more people unemployed. I don't think we want that on our consciences.” So either he’s lying, or he’s one of Pelosi’s idiot minions- this statement about the urgency of celerity does not reflect the actual language of the bill. It will be years, not weeks, before all the billions in the bill are paid out.
What’s worse, the majority of the money that will be spent isn’t necessarily going to directly stimulate the economy. Just ask the Wall Street Journal- and they certainly know what they’re talking about when it comes to finances. According to columnist Peggy Noonan (whose article is already linked above through “major victory!”), the WSJ has determined that only 12% of the entire bill is actually legitimate “stimulus.” What could possibly constitute the other 88%? Such economically worthy ideas as Madame Speaker’s birth control stimulus! Of course, how could we be so stupid? The solution to the economic crisis is to buy everyone a condom! Oh, you genius, you, Pelosi.
And of course, the bill is crammed with plenty of other porky projects- literally billions of dollars worth. Take, for instance, the $50 million earmarked for the National Endowment of the Arts. Or the $400 million for global warming research. And there’s a full billion reserved for the coffers of Amtrak, and six billion for urban mass transit systems. This is not stimulus. Stimulus is supposed to provide a return on the investment- that’s how spending stimulus money actually makes more money. This is regular old spending. It’s throwing money into projects that will never produce more capital or jobs, which is the last thing we need right now.
According to Rahm Emmanuel, there’s a good reason for all this, as another WSJ column observes. Back in November, Emmanuel said, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” Well that explains it all. The Democrats in the House who contributed to this bill are using the economic crisis to push their personal agendas. Hey, it’s an excellent time to pay back old favors or sneak in a personal policy change. This is the height of irresponsibility and indeed flat out weasely corruption. They are not doing their jobs. America will suffer for their idiocy.
On top of all of this, the Democrats think they can get away with this. They’re attempting to silence opposition to the bill by accusing those who criticize it as blocking quick economic recovery. Too bad that the problem with this lie is that the Democrats’ version of stimulus isn’t stimulus at all!
It’s stuff like this which makes certain Democrats in the House of Representatives total twits. And it makes me angry, and also makes me bitterly opposed to trying to work with them. They’re making me a partisan.
On the other (less-angry) hand, many of the non-stimulus programs slipped into the stimulus bill are for a good cause. I’m a musician, I enjoy going to art museums, and I wouldn’t necessarily mind giving a nice check to the National Endowment of the Arts, for example. Or, maybe we do need to spend money to find out more about global warming. But there is a time and a place for that, and this- a global economic crisis- is not the time. Do Dems on the Hill not realize that this is an emergency?
My final word is for President Obama. Although he is a Democrat, and I just blasted Democrats in the House, he is not as guilty as them for this bill’s total failure. It was he, for example, who put Pelosi back into place by asking her to take out her obviously wasteful and pointless birth control stimulus scheme. I appreciate that, Mr. President. But he ultimately gave the bill his blessing. There are two possible reasons for this: either he didn’t read the bill, or he’s a member of the Idiot Club of Congressional Democrats. I hope he didn’t read the bill.
Now, there is a silver lining on this cloud. The Senate still has to pass the stimulus bill, and their version is already looking likely to be far less wasteful. They actually have some sense in the Senate, it turns out. Or maybe, it’s just that inconvenient Republican minority- who can filibuster passage of any idiot stimulus bill.
Nah… I’d prefer to think that not all Democrats are idiots. After all, there are those 11 so far… how encouraging.
Thanks I need that today. You forgot my favorite part of the wasteful spending and that would be 240 million for coupons to the T.V. converts. The wasteful pork in the house bill is beyond anything we have ever seen. Keep up the good fight call your congress person and tell them you do not want wasteful spending. Our senators will be more then willing to listen to you us due to the fact that they are up for re-election in less then two years.
On a side note: welcome back I notice that you were gone for a while I glad to see that you have returned.
"Something given has no value"~Robert Heinlein
"Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is." Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richards Almanack, 1749
And what-- if not public works projects like mass transit --should the stimulus bill consist of?
*Whispers* please not more tax breaks, don't say 'tax breaks'
my documentary...
"some folks say that a hippie won't steal,
but I caught three in my corn field"
--John Hartford
I'll refrain from saying tax breaks. Though a couple more hundred millions of dollars worth of them could help.
I admit that we have to spend money to help us get out of this mess, and not just cut taxes. But it has to be money well spent. The problem with mass transit systems across America is that, in my opinion, they can't really be considered "public works." I can't imagine what all that money going to public transportation can possibly be used for- bus repairs? You can't really create more jobs that way because let's face it, how many new train operators and bus drivers do we need? Secondly, all the public transportation systems that I know of operate at horrible losses- they absorb money without creating new wealth. Like I said, we need stimulus that creates wealth and jobs, and directing money into mass transit systems will do little of either.
On the other hand, rather than improving buses, we could improve the roads they drive on. That's a plausibly stimulating public works project. In my own personal experience, my home state of Pennsylvania has infamously decrepit roads. A lot of workers will be needed to fix and upgrade our infrastructure, which will hopefully translate into plenty of new job opportunities (albeit only in the construction or concrete industries).
I can understand someone from your perspective being tempted to enact environmental reforms (which is why I assume you specifically picked out mass transit funding) during this time. While I think Emmanuel's comment is ultimately corrupt, he is right: it is easiest to enact change at a time like this. But, focusing too much on trying to change extraneous policies right now could come to harm us in the long run. We have to make sure we have a viable future by getting through the present first.
I am curious why do you not want to hear tax breaks? I would not have said taxes break I would have said to lower taxes. I would have still said to lower taxes on companies and the wealthiest among us. We have one of the largest capital gains taxes in the world and we wonder why companies are trying to send jobs overseas. I want the government to back off lower taxes and let the free market fixes itself. Stop bailing out companies that are failing.
For example if the big 3 started to file for chapter 7 the UAW would make great concessions that would help make the big 3 money. The government bailout of the big 3 consist of the big 3 make more greener cars and less big vehicles well the average American wants the bigger SUV s and trucks because we feel safer in them.
If we keep taxing those that make the jobs and pay people and make the goods that we all want then they will layoff more people and make less products. Which by the law of supply and demand will make the price of those good go up and with no one having the money to buy them the company will loss more money and the only thing make all this money is the government.
Now if the government would back off and let this companies do what they need to do and lower their taxes then this companies can make more money hire more people make more revenue and the government would make a lot more in taxes that way.
Thank you for taking the time to read my comment I hope you have a great day.
"Something given has no value"~Robert Heinlein
"Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is." Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richards Almanack, 1749
I think GU didn't want to hear about taxes not because he necessarily thinks they're a bad idea but because that's something fiscal conservatives always complain about. It's not exactly anything new or interesting.
It's true that the US has among the highest corporate tax rates in the world. But, I'm not sure lowering those taxes would help failing companies at the moment. These companies, like Chrysler or many banks, are failing largely because of their own mistakes. Car companies were not able to innovate and produce appropriate vehicles, while many large national banks took part in unsafe lending practices.
On the one hand, instead of bailing these companies out, maybe we could have given them tax breaks in the form of a "bailout." But... still, that would be defeating the point of a capitalistic system. Bad companies are supposed to fail, and allow new and better ones rise in their place. It's a bad situation... either we prop up bad companies and therefore allow them to linger on in corporate comatose (bad for our entire economic system), or let them fail and have massive unemployment and recession (also bad for our entire economic system). I don't know which is worse.
This is getting long, so I'll wrap up with this. Consider: ExxonMobil, that oil company everyone loves to hate, has posted a record yearly profit. Now, last year they were criticized for not taking advantage of high oil prices to expand and whatnot. But their CEO was smart. Even now, with oil prices (and demand) back down and the economy in a rut, they're in no danger- and despite their high taxes.
So I mostly agree with what you say, and tax breaks couldn't hurt... but the real problem with these companies is mismanagement and greed, not necessarily high taxes.
Yeah, I don't know which is worse either. In the long-term, I'm sure a depression would be in our interest. We're captives of a poor economic system.
I just hope one of the lessons we learn from our current predicament is that having an economy that relies on one mega-corp. or even the "big three" in one sector is unsafe, because if they fail, it seems we have to prop them up.
How they became so large is another thing. I'm sure we could agree that the federal government contributed to this with corporate welfare.
my documentary...
"some folks say that a hippie won't steal,
but I caught three in my corn field"
--John Hartford
As I have said on countless comments before on many other blogs. We should let them fail. If they can not support themselves then we should let them fall it may hurt but in the long run it will help. Bailing out companies because they made stupid mistake and did not invest right is just going to lead to a drain on the economy and a dependence on government money. Banks for one if we did not bailout the government piggy banks they would have been bought out by good banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America These two banks did not make those sub prime loans and got hurt by the government for it but now they are in a position to buy up this banks that are in major trouble. Now with the big three if we had let them fall. The UAW (united auto worker union) would have made concessions that have been bleeding the big three for many decades now. Since the current government overseer's will not let anyone fall and will just bail them out it stands to reason that the only other choice would be tax breaks or lowering taxes in general.
"Something given has no value"~Robert Heinlein
"Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is." Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richards Almanack, 1749
Things are looking a little grim right now for our economy. And we've had some bad time in the past too. The 70's were a lot worse then anything we have seen so far.
But our "poor economic system" has allowed us to become the wealthiest country in the world. At no point in human history have so many people lived so well. Even our poor are in pretty good shape when compared either to the poor in the rest of the world or the poor backwards in history.
Our economic system is pretty good and I would rather be a captive of it then whatever you have in mind.
I agree- it's ridiculous that any company become "too large to fail." If we need to go back to the time of trust-busting, then so be it. Companies that are too big just create market blackholes when they fail- sucking in the billions of worth of capital and millions of customers and employees associated with them. Conservatives generally believe in government decentralization, but I apply that idea to business too.
Jackbenimble criticized you for labeling our economic system as "poor." I don't exactly know what you meant by that, but to me, capitalism is not the bad guy. Monopolistic capitalism is.
Decentralize certainly is key. If we had distributive energy and food production in our communities I think we would live much more meaningful lives.
Jack and I have had this discussion before. For the most part, it's been stimulated by carrot's posts.
My perspective of our economy differs very much from Jackbenimble's. I believe that oil has created most of the growth and wealth in this country--we have not created these things because Americans are more bright or collaborative than any other people in the world.
Jackbenimble might not agree with the story of stuff (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8) but I believe this is the major pitiful of our system. It, combined with an ever-increasing population, has lead to the loss of biological diversity and a host of other problems. Could our economy operate in a better way that doesn't destroy the ecological services (that "produce" more Gross Domestic Product by purifying water, restoring soil and other "services" than the GDP of the world) we depend on?
Sure. But right now I think most people in this country and others are captives of economic systems that doesn't represent them. Americans don't walk out of their front doors on sunny days on their way to work and say, "I'd like to be part of the cause of species extinction today," but that's the only choice we're being given. That's what I mean by a "poor" economic system.
my documentary...
"some folks say that a hippie won't steal,
but I caught three in my corn field"
--John Hartford
Not that I agree with it but, the birth control proposal makes more sense to me than...
A MOB MUSEUM!
Rejected, I know, but... Seriously, wtf?
Nevada's 2 largest budget cuts this year were from the Department of Health and Human Services and K-12 Education. But the Economy will be all better if we open a mob museum and widen a 4.7-mile stretch of the US 95?
I know I know next to nothing about the economy but none of this seems right to me. Oh well.
"What a crazy random happenstance!"
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Read my Blog!
Yikes I had to read that one. It's horrifying that these people are running our cities and our country.
You claim to not know much about the economy, but you're making more sense to me right now than most of our policy makers in Washington.
More of our policy-makers need to be like Russ Feingold. He's a smart guy.
Or maybe I just like him because he hand wrote me a letter in response to an email I sent to his "write your representative" form. ;-)
"What a crazy random happenstance!"
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Read my Blog!
I think you put a little too much faith in the Senate but otherwise I agree with everything you wrote.
I guess late is better than never but it is too bad that Republicans did not have this spending epiphany 8 years ago.
The democrats know that their time in the sun will be gone before they know it. in less then two years the senate comes up for re-election and there maybe a shift to the right in the senate. Of course if there is a shift to the right in congress that is what democrats' people will blame for the reason why we have not gotten out the economic crisis that we are in come the following election.
"Something given has no value"~Robert Heinlein
"Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is." Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richards Almanack, 1749
I have hated this proposed stimulus from the beginning. I think it is a ridiculous waste of money that we do not have. You might enjoy this editorial. I know I did.
And now an update in the ongoing saga of the stimulus bill:
First, nobody is going to get to read the new version of the stimulus bill, including almost every member of Congress who has to vote on it. Like I said, they're idiots. And Nancy's the biggest of them all.
Second, yet another news report backs up my claims: that the bill is not stimulus, but rather just a social spending bill, and will probably not help the economy. In the words of one economist quoted in this report, doing nothing may have actually been better than this bill.
What a miserable situation. Thanks a bundle, Madame Speaker and Mr. President- you're failing.
I'll take this opportunity to say "I told you so".
You said:
Now, there is a silver lining on this cloud. The Senate still has to pass the stimulus bill, and their version is already looking likely to be far less wasteful. They actually have some sense in the Senate
And I said:
I think you put a little too much faith in the Senate
I think the Senate version of the bill was actually worse then the House version. It was slightly cheaper but it stripped out the only thing I liked in the House Bill which was that it mandated the use of E-Verify for companies receiving stimulous money. Now, according to the Congressional Budget Office, some 300,000 of the jobs that we are paying for at the not so much of a bargain rate of about $200,000 per job, are going to go to illegal immigrants.
Other than that though, I think this is a great blog and I think you are spot on.
Yes I remember. You did tell me so. I was overly optimistic. The Senate bill still fails to address the underlying inadequacies of the stimulus bill. One of the Republicans who ended up supporting the Senate bill is from my state, and up for reelection in 2010. I'll be taking out my wrath on him in the Republican primary.
Likewise. Since there are two Senators from Maine you must be talking about Pennsylvania and Arlen Sphincter. I'll be sending money to his primary opponent. I hope it is Pat Toomey who now runs the Club for Growth and almost beat Sphincter last time except for President Bush's intervention. If he does not lose in the Republican primary I will send money to Sphincter's Democratic opponent in the general election.. I'd just as soon have somebody who is honest about their intentions to destroy the country as a rino liar.
The Maine Senators can also expect donations from me to their political opponents.
I tried to call the Capital Hill switchboard this morning. It took me about 5 busy signals and one "all circuits are busy" message before I finally got through to the operator. Sphincter's line was busy. Olympia Snow's line was busy. I finally ended up in Susan Collin's voicemail and I got the "mailbox is full message". It was a fruitless effort. People are PISSED OFF about Porkulous. I have not seen people so worked up since we defeated the Shamnesty Bill last summer and crashed the Capitol Hill Switchboard in the process.
The silver lining in this whole thing is that the Democrats are going to get 100% of the blame for this mess. They have over-reached and people are pissed. I bet they get punished for it.
How about that $13 per week middle-class tax cut? That will sure go along way towards staving off foreclosure and keeping the kids fed.
There is still the slightest chance that this thing won't get 60 votes in the Senate. Ted Kennedy went back to the hospital so if even one of the three rinos caves to public anger the bill dies. It isn't over until it is over.
Here are Arlen Spector's office locations. As a PA resident you should call EACH one of his local office numbers and read them the riot act.
Sphincter's offices
Well Sphincter is up for re-election in 2010 and i hope that he loses. The two Maine senators Collins and Snowe are not up for re-election in 2010. Collins is up for re-election in 2014 and Snowe in 2012. I am glad that my TN senators both said no to the bill.
Side note to everyone you can find out who your senators are here. http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
In case you did not know where to check to find out that information.
"Something given has no value"~Robert Heinlein
"Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is." Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richards Almanack, 1749
I see some value for the birth control. For those who are poor and do not want another kid, it means the government will not have to pay for the child's health insurance. I don't think that birth control will noticeably cut the expenses, and this won't help us until twenty years later. It actually might hurt us because we need more tax payers as the baby boomers age.