And now, back to our regularly scheduled spending orgy
My syndicated column today pounds the drum again on the Generational Theft Act of 2009. As I noted two weeks ago, much of this crappiest crap sandwich ever wouldn’t even be spent until the catastrophe it’s supposed to cure is mostly over. Team Obama sent David Axelrod out yesterday to pooh-pooh the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis. But Democrat opposition to the bill is building. Some, like Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), want more government intrusion on behalf of home borrowers under water on their mortgages. But others, including Rep. Heath Shuler and Sen. Kent Conrad mentioned below, are starting to get queasy about the size, scope, and ineffectiveness of the deal.
Where are Republicans? Weakened and struggling to figure out how to be the party of opposition instead of the party of supplication.
***
And now, back to our regularly scheduled spending orgy
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009
“The time has come,” President Barack Obama told us in his inaugural address, “to set aside childish things.” He borrowed the line from Corinithians. With the Beltway bread-and-circus show over, President Obama will now get to work on borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from you, your children, and your grandchildren for a doomed fiscal stimulus.
As President Obama basked in the inaugural glow, a dark cloud of reality moved in over the Democrats’ $825 trillion plan to rescue the economy. The Congressional Budget Office crunched the numbers and concluded that a huge bulk of the federal spending orgy wouldn’t actually kick in until the recession is waning – if not already over.
The CBO analysis showed that “less than half of the $30 billion in highway construction funds detailed by House Democrats would be released into the economy over the next four years” and “less than $4 billion in highway construction money would reach the economy by September 2010,” according to the Associated Press. And those are generous time estimates given the reality of molasses-slow bidding and contracting processes — bogged down by the usual weight of political wrangling, racial-bean-counting, and assorted union grievance-mongering.
Just $26 billion out of the $274 billion set aside in the package would reach the economy by the end of the year, the CBO found. That’s a mere 7 percent. Moreover, the AP summed up: “Just one in seven dollars of a huge $18.5 billion investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would be spent within a year and a half.”
Like I said two weeks ago (“The Generational Theft Act of 2009,” Jan. 7, 2009): It’s the timing, stupid.
The other incontrovertible truth about this massive wealth transfer is that Washington cannot stop the inevitable lard-up. The original concept of spending on”roads and bridges” has morphed into spending on anything and everything that moves or can be moved. Every moocher in the marketplace wants his grubby paws on the money. And if his or her provision isn’t already written into the Democrats’ legislation, it will get slipped in under cover of night.
To wit: Public radio and public television — already funded with your money to the tune of some $400 million in direct federal handouts and tax deductions for contributions made by individual viewers, not to mention untold state grants and subsidies — are demanding a hugetastic chunk of the stimulus pie. That’s right: Government-supported NPR and PBS want even more of a bailout than they’ve lived off the last 40 years. According to Current.org, which covers public TV and radio, the two entities along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have petitioned Obama for $550 million in funding to help create more workers suckling on the public teat.
Watching TV is apparently critical to rescuing the American economy. Already stuffed into the Democrats’ package is a $650 million bailout – call it the Boob Tube boondoggle – to pay for $650 million worth of digital TV upgrade coupons in the wake of the official, government-mandated transition to digital television next month. Not to be left out, the National Endowment of the Arts is on the Santa stimulus list for an additional $50 million cash injection. Oh, and there’s an additional $50 million earmarked “to make up for a lack of philanthropic support for the arts.” A breakdown of the spending by House GOP minority leader John Boehner’s office found an additional $6 billion in buried stimulus treasure for colleges and $166 billion in direct aid to states looking for taxpayers to save them from their profligate spending.
A few conservative Democrats have started murmuring about this looming fiscal nightmare. North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler expressed concern about the porkification of the bill: “This can’t be a Christmas tree.” Senator Kent Conrad told Bloomberg News “his committee projects the plan will reduce the unemployment rate by ‘maybe’ 1 percent, or about half of the 3 million jobs Obama has said the plan would generate.”
Wake up, taxpayers: This nearly $1 trillion plan is nothing but future-mortgaging ornaments and tinsel boxed in self-delusion. It is time, as President Obama lectured us, to put away childish things – starting with this epic fail.
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No. Its verifiably gone up about 105 points.
If you are correct, I will be the first one in line to kiss his ring and call him the messiah. Though I am not holding out much “hope” of that. D*mn pesky reality always interrupts my dreaming.
The problem is they don’t want to stop the crap buffet… they just want to spend it their way. So unfortunately, it’s not really opposition.
And where are the Republicans is a very good question. They are looking like submissive drones at the moment.
I can’t beleive they keep pushing for programs to reward ignorant and incompetnet behavior. I know a guy who took out a HELOC for investment purposes, on a home he owns free and clear (he also put every $ he has into same investment, idiot). The investment soured and he is about to lose his house. You can bet he will be at the front of the line asking for a bailout. Sure wish I could find a way to invest and take all the upside but none of the downside. I feel bad for the guy, but common sense was overtaken by greed in his case, which should NEVER be rewarded.
It closed down 300+ points yesterday
It also saw a 6 year low… twice… in that same time frame.
Volatility is bad. It equates to uncertainty. Which is also bad.
But much of that drop was still under the Bush administration (pre 12:00 pm). Its not Obama’s fault that the markets hate Bush, is it?
But don’t worry. As I said, it will be about 60,000 by the end of the year.
Chap has to excuse the one. But I have yet to see one dem even try to explain where all the money for these historicaly huge spending bills is coming from. They aren’t even talking about taxes at this point, there isn’t even a bad attempt at rasing this money. I think they honestly expect it to appear out of thin air.
Obama froze wages at the White house. That should cover the first $20,000 or so.
Great, only 1,799,999,980,000 dollars to go.
The longest journey starts with the smallest step. So sayeth chapoutier-san.
Also, once we prosecute Cheney and Bush for war crimes and confiscate their property, that adds another $100 million or so to the coffers!
See! This is easy!
Spending the country into bankruptcy is not hopey changey. So sayeth everyone with a brain.
Then there’s that idea being tossed around of selling off the vastly inferior and superfluous North Dakota. I mean do we REALLY need two Dakotas?
I’ll bet we could get at least a couple million from Canada for it if we agree to throw in that odd dangly part of Michigan.
ha ha.
This referred back to an earlier post that stated that since WW2 recessions have lasted, on average, 12 months and never more than 24.
It’s time to face the music. What we are currently seeing has never happened before. That is, government bailouts in the TRILLIONS; too many people defaulting on mortgages they never should have gotten, which has thrown the housing industry into the crapper. Equity has been shot; construction isn’t happening … blah, blah, blah.
For decades part of the money used to get us out of recessions was people tapping home equity. Guess what, there isn’t as much of that around to tap anymore.
And the government activity over the last 90 days and what is expected to happen going forward will only exaccerbate the situation. The people in Washington don’t have a clue. They’re throwing everything they can think of against the wall and praying (shhhhh, don’t want to mingle “church and state” now, do we?) something sticks.
It won’t. This is the wrong solution, in the wrong time and place.
I encourage everyone to go out and buy a wheelbarrow soon. If you don’t understand, do some research on the Weimar Republic, Germany in the 1920′s. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
And a wood burning stove with shovel.
In order to bail out all of the JUNK PAPER, like leveraged derivatives, that the government is trying to keep from destroying the banking system, the TARP bailout would have to be doubled 6 times. Thats not multiplying 6 times to $6 trillion dollars, that’s doubling 6 times to $64 trillion. One estimate that I read of leveraged debt worldwide amounts to ~$650 trillion.
The problem is that with the hyperinflation, your prediction may be more accurate than not. Especially with $55/gallon gas.
And then we have John McCain, struggling to figure out how to best ingratiate himself with the left and stab what is supposedly his own party in the back.
I’m warming up to the European party system, where they can kick people out of their party for betraying it.
Wouldn’t that imply some intention of HIM paying it back if he were really going to “borrow” it?
And this is the party that is so against corporate welfare?
Hey America, thanks so much for voting in that CHANGE.
It must be so awesome to freeze your butt off and overly cogitate that you, a most benighted, self-important soul thought that The One spoke to you and you alone. Hate to break it to ya, but after China and the Saudis pull the plug, all the CHANGE you’ll have will be the few pennies you’ll be clinking together while waiting in the unemployment line. The same promise you think he made to you, America, he made to another poor smuck in yet one more disenfranchized, victim focus poll group.
Oh, and thanks for turning your back on the military too, America. The military knows your decision for what it is- defeatism.
Oh, and keep on living in denial that you can run up credit cards, live in a house you’ll never own but merely making payments on like any tenant, walk away from your house when you can’t hack it, or generally live on borrowed time, America. So tune into American Idol to feed your need for a new celebrity idol to worship.
Oh, and America? If you think that at the end of the day that there won’t be a massive bill due at the end of bailapalooza, think again. It will happen when your taxes get raised, Obummer makes it even more dificult for business to exist and so more American jobs will be going to China and India.
You see, America, the federal government is outta control and you just enabled it some more.
After they went head-long for Obama, I say let’s sell off North Carolina and throw in Virginia as a two-fer!
A conservative bank in the making?
Limbaugh, Forbes, Welch, Ioccoca on board..
Sign me up…Would change the American Vista in six months.
No foreign interference…ie…China won’t own my mortgage.
That CBO report, on which you base much you your column, doesn’t exist.
OOPS
Don’t you read the reports before you cite them? Or do you just assume the liberal media (in this case, AP), will get it right?
I thought everyone here held a deep distrust of ‘mainstream media’. I guess that distrust only comes into play when you want it to.