Thursday, February 5, 2009

Porkulus!!!

I got the following list from the NRO Site Im trying to leave all their links intact so you can view their source material. My comments and thoughts are in blue.

Typical left wing profligate spending:

1. $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts

A Complete waste of the tax payer money and not something the majority of the US tax payers would approve of if it were put up for referendum. This is something like a 30% increase for this non-economy oriented program. Number of jobs created, negligable. Net effect to the national economy, none.

2. $380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program

This could be argued to be a worthwile program but it has NOTHING to do with stimulating the economy and getting jobs created and business back on its feet. It is basically just a welfare program.

3. $300 million for grants to combat violence against women

Again we just see another program designed to redirect tax money to a particular program that has nothing at all to do with creating large numbers of private sector jobs.

4. $2 billion for federal child care block grants

This would help single mothers and low income families with their bills but does nothing to create jobs for them to go to, necessitating leaving their kids with strangers.

5. $6 billion for university building projects

Large amount of money targeted at a small number of institutions that could fund these in other ways. Very few contruction jobs for the pricetag. If you want to fund educational building programs send this money to the community colleges which handle a far greater number of our citizens.

6. $15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships

I can agree that this is a good program but it is not a stimulus program, it brings more $$$ to the schools and teahcers but doesnt generate any appreciable number of private sector jobs.

7. $4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion to provide “youth” summer jobs for people up to the age of 24

Cart before the horse spending here, what jobs you going to train them for? Where will they find employment? this is not related to economic stimulus. Not to mention this program has been determined to be ineffective and unproductive by the GAO .

8. $1 billion for community development block grants

Oh boy more community organizer work, has anyone been to a government housing community recently? Not something we should be investing in to get our business and tax paying citizens back on their feet. Will be nice for the non-tax paying citizens though. You can also read this as ACORN spending.

9. $4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”

And even more ACORN money. A nice redistribution of money into someones voting district but NOT a stimulus program.

10. $650 million for digital TV coupons, including $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”

This is just stupid, TV is in no way a government responsibility, if the people want to see TV they can BUY their TV's. If they dont have the cash, well do what I did when I didnt have the cash....do without. Absolute waste of taxpayer money.

Poorly Designed Tax Relief:

11. $15 billion for business-loss carry-backs

12. $145 billion for “Making Work Pay” tax credits

13. $83 billion for the earned income credit

Scrap these and put the money into Corporate Capital Gains tax cuts and Payroll tax cuts, doing this would create more jobs than any of the other measures. The 83 Billion for EIC is just absolutely NOT a stimulus to the TAX payers but wealth redistribution to those who do not pay in. These people would benefit from a payroll tax cut.

Government Bloat Increase:

14. $150 million for the Smithsonian

15. $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters

16. $500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities

17. $44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters

18. $350 million for Agriculture Department computers

19. $88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building next year

20. $448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters

21. $600 million to convert federal auto fleet to hybrids

22. $450 million for National Aeronautics and Space Administration

23. $600 million for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

24. $1 billion for the Census Bureau

All of these programs come at a net cost to the tax payer, they do not generate wealth, large numbers of tax paying jobs and should be funded via normal means rather than in a bill meant to get the country out of the current economic jam. Now is not the time to start funding the liberal wish list.

INCOME TRANSFERS:

25. $89 billion for Medicaid

26. $30 billion for COBRA insurance extension

27. $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits

28. $20 billion for food stamps

The header says it all, it is taking money from those who earned it and giving it to someone who did not. While we as a nation may agree to help the less fortunate when we can, the Stimulus package is not the place for it. This is just an attempt to ram the appropriations through on the coat tails of actual needed legislation. Basically a lazymans way of getting what you want...why fight for each funding when you can tack it onto something you can hide it in.

PURE PORK:

29. $4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

30. $850 million for Amtrak

31. $87 million for a polar icebreaking ship

32. $1.7 billion for the National Park System

33. $55 million for Historic Preservation Fund

34. $7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs”

35. $150 million for agricultural commodity purchases

36. $150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”

Header says it all, "Pure Pork." Nuff said

RENEWABLE WASTE:

37. $2 billion for renewable energy research

38. $2 billion for a “clean-coal” power plant in Illinois

39. $6.2 billion shall be for the Weatherization Assistance Program

40. $3.5 billion shall be for energy efficiency and conservation block grants

41. $3.4 billion shall be for the State Energy Program

42. $200 million shall be for state and local electric-transport projects

43. $300 million shall be for energy-efficient appliance rebate programs

44. $400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments

45. $1 billion for the manufacturing of advanced batteries

46. $1.5 billion for green technology loan guarantees

47. $8 billion for innovative technology loan guarantee program

48. $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects

49. $4.5 billion for electricity grid

Here again we see a bunch of interesting nice to pursue projects but they are NOT related to fixing our current economic crisis, they are geared towards long term change in our economy. But they are not part of the crisis and some of them are just non-sense. Most of which should be pursued in the private sector and can be promoted with tax breaks. Tax breaks which would encourage the research, and if ported to the capital gains and pay roll taxes would cause a nice economic boost.


REWARDING STATE IRRESPONSIBILITY:

50. $79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund

This last one really irks me, State and Local idiots mismanaged things from the start, rather than using wise spending and investing when they had surpluses they wasted it on uncontrolled spending and expanded government programs. Now they want to hit EVERYONE up a 2nd time to help them out of the mess they created.


Seriously folks, while everyone is demonizing corporate leaders no one is pointing the finger where a LOT of the blame lays, with our elected officials, 2/3 of them should resign immediately as soon as replacements for them can be brought into office. They should be ashamed.

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