Stimulus Bill Full of Pork and Payoffs
By Tom McClusky | From the FRC Blog
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently found that the cost of the Pelosi-Reid stimulus package now exceeds $1.1 trillion. CBO also estimated that only 7 percent of infrastructure money would make its way into the economy by the end of the year and only 38 percent would be spent by the end of the 2010 fiscal year. Senator Jeff Session's (R-Ala.) office estimates the actual number going to tangible road and bridge construction is just a little more than 3 percent.
Where is this money going to? A not exhaustive look at the 1,588 page legislation, H.R. 1, "The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009" shows the bill is more payoffs and pork then stimulus. Many thanks to the website readthestimulus.org and its participating organizations.
PAYOFFS
To the "Green" Lobby
* $600 Million To Buy New Cars For Government Workers (Page 89). These cars would be "green" friendly cars - however very few gas pumps have the right gas to run these cars. The Federal government already spends $3.5 billion a year.
* $10M for bike and walking trails (Page 65)
* $200M for plug-in car stations (Page 31)
* $400 million for NASA scientists to conduct climate change research (Page 22)
* $800 million to clean up Superfund sites (Page 122)
* $600 million for grants for diesel emission reduction (Page 119)
* $650 million for "alternative energy technologies, energy efficiency enhancements and deferred maintenance at Federal facilities" (Page 119)
* $1.5 billion for construction of "Green Schools" (Page 176)
To the Unions
* $1 billion to the controversial COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES COPS Hiring Program
* $150 billion in new federal spending, a vast two-year investment that would more than double the Department of Education's current budget. The proposed emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students" Sam Dillon, "Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid to Education," New York Times. January 27, 2009. NOTE: Private and religious schools are excluded.
To the Abortion Industry
Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) inserted in the original bill billions of dollars for family planning groups, including the abortion giant, Planned Parenthood. Pressure and public exposure from Congressional Republicans forced the Democrats to remove such funding from this bill. However the bill still provides billions in reforming the health care system and working towards nationalized health care - with little to no debate.
* $2.7B in NIH grants which would be targeted to among other things embryonic stem cell experimentation. (Page 56)
Other Special Interests
* $3 Billion for Prevention & Wellness Programs, Including $335 million for STD Education and Prevention - Recent government expenditures in this area include a transgender beauty pageant in San Francisco that advertised available HIV testing and an event called "Got Love? - Flirt/Date/Score" that taught participants how "to flirt with greater finesse."
* $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax.
* $246 million for Hollywood
* $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (Page 122)
* $75 million for smoking cessation (Page 148). This contradicts the latest version of SCHIP that is funded largely by new taxes on cigarettes.
* $4.19 billion open to ACORN. The Pelosi-Reid bill makes groups like ACORN eligible for a $4.19 billion pot of money for "neighborhood stabilization activities."
MISCELLANEOUS PORK
Some of the biggest winners in the package are federal agencies:
* $54 billion will go to federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the Government Accountability Office have already criticized as "ineffective" or unable to pass basic financial audits.
* $462 Million for Equipment, Construction, and Renovation of Facilities at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (Page 137)
* $150 Million for Repairs to Smithsonian Institution Facilities (Page 128)
* $44 million to the Agricultural Research Service (Page 135)
* $227 million for oversight of the pork barrel spending in the stimulus (Page 11)
* $1 Billion for The Follow-Up To The 2010 Census (Page 49)
Discretion is given to governors and Mayors for how to spend a large chunk of the money. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently sent Congress a $96.6 billion wish list of "shovel-ready" projects which now could be funded by the stimulus. These projects include: "$1 million for annual sewer rehabilitation in Casper, WY; $6.1 million for corporate hangars, parking lots, and a business apron at the Fayetteville, AR airport; 28 projects with the term "stadium" in them; and 117 projects mentioning landscaping and/or beautification efforts. The taxpayers should be most teed off at the 20 golf courses included in the list."
(Editor's note: All sources are from the National Taxpayers Union unless otherwise noted.)
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I am a happily married for 33 years mother of two sons (one 27 and one 13). We are a very typical middle class family. My husband has worked for over twenty years for an international manufacturing company and I have been employed in the graphics industry for 35 years. Our oldest is now a 4-year college graduate and employed as a civil engineer. We have always been very conservative with our life style, not taking fancy trips (never more than one week and usually stay in California). Mainly because we have never made enough money to pay for anything more extravagant. We have owned our own home for 27 years and have slowly bought three rental houses to help with our retirement which we have slowly tried to pay off each one, but needed to get various loans on a couple of them to purchase the next one. We don’t have new cars because we do not want nor can we afford a car payment, so we buy a good running car for cash and drive it as long as it will last. Our cars are from 1998 or older.
So my reason for this letter is that I feel I am qualified to offer my suggestion on the way to get this country out of the horrible mess it is in, because I feel I am a very typical middle class family mom. This whole thing started with the price of gas. Gas is something we all HAVE to have, no way about it. Especially in states like California where everything is more spread out, you have to drive to work, to the store. When the government did nothing to stop the drastic rise in gas prices it completely led to the zero confidence of the American people. We have no way to not use gas. If it was anything else, we could have used something different, like if milk goes up, stop buying it. If PG&E goes up so high you can’t afford it, you turn the heat and air off (even though that never seemed to lower our bill!). You have choices to use an alternative or not at all. But when gas was allowed to go up so high that it took every driver’s discretionary income, necessity income, etc., it completely stripped all confidence I had in any government entity. It hit the American middle class in every aspect, we had to pay hundreds more a WEEK just to get to work which most of us didn’t even have extra, so other necessities were set aside just to get to work. And we were the brunt of every other thing in our lives that relies on gas, from the grocery store to absolutely everything was raised because of their higher gas bills. The fact that there was nothing the government could do or would do to stop this created the mass panic of the people to quit buying anything, which led to the housing downfall because those first people losing their jobs started the mass loss of houses, which started the domino effect that is still taking place because the people saw that something like that (the outrageous rise of gas prices) was allowed to happen with no government help to let such a thing take place. And now states have even gotten so used to the high gas prices which means high gas taxes that they want to tax the mileage on the small cars that some people managed to buy that are cheap on gas because they are not getting as much gas taxes (I find this disgusting!). So even if you manage to do something so that you are not paying such an outrageous price weekly for your gas, they are going to get you by charging on the miles you drive! I feel that there is so much greed at the top that no one will try to do anything to make sure this never happens again because there are a lot of people who are making money on the high gas prices even though it is ruining the country!
My purpose for this letter is I feel the only way to get the American people’s confidence back is to use ALL the bailout money that is being thrown away by just giving it to the corrupt banking CEO’s is to use it ALL for an alternative to gas for the entire country and every American so they don’t have to be completely at the whim of whoever is adjusting gas prices and taxes. Use it all to create one alternative that everyone will use because just letting a bunch of different ones come out means there are not enough stations available for the people who choose a particular alternative. And make it so everyone is given the alternative car like one per family. I believe the whole country would come out of recession if the gas problem was addressed COMPLETELY.
The truth is that the people of this country cannot stand to live within their means.
If people could accept that fact, Government representatives included, this would not be a problem.
Housing crisis? Don't apply for a loan that you can't afford to pay for and don't blame the lender. If I walked up to you and offered you $10 for the pack of gum that you just bought for $1, would you say no?
Need to get credit flowing? See the first statement. The Banks are just enforcing reasonable lending practices now because they got burned selling $1 packs of gum to people who promised to give them $10, and then couldn't.
Need to pump money into the economy? If people did not live paycheck to paycheck and actually SAVED money, they would be able to ride out hard times.
Spend Billions to get people checks for $1000 to stimulate the economy? That equals ~ 175 million people, or 175 billion dollars. What is the other 800 billion for? Now that they have their checks and spend them on tv's or "stuff", what do you do next month, another round of stimulus? How many jobs did you create by giving people a few bucks to buy stuff that has already been produced and is sitting on shelves?
Now the Government is paying $10 for $1 packs of gum. There is no way that the money will be recouped and now the Government owes money, but hey it's no their money, then they come and get it from people like me. Someone that actually pays taxes and lives within my means. By the way, that is called Socialism, no matter how you libs want to spin it. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
So this is what the morally bankrupt repubs are down to, distortions and lies? Almost everything here
is so twisted, biased it's sad really. I wish there was a god as it would burn these lairs in hell. You know they don't believe in god because if they did they would know where they would end up.
Let's take Planed Parenthood for instance. They are a family planning org trying to teach people how not to have unwanted pregnancies, thus not have abortions. Yet the fools writing this rather have more abortions and ignorant people than teach them how to use birth control!! The saddest thing is they are just pro fetus as after the baby is born, they leave them to fend for themselves by not helping the poor.
The basis is a pure lie as the CBO never said the lie they say, they just made that up. The CBO said 68% would be spent in 18 months. Check the CBO website for the truth.
It's bull like this is why the Repubs lost and will lose more next election. What a bunch of losers. Sadly they ran the country into the ground before enough people saw the light about them. I consider the damage they did makes them traitors. Terrorist never did 1/100th of the damage as repubs have to the US.
Now Obama has to fix it and they do nothing but obstruct him, the dems from fixing the massive recession their energy, tax, war, regulation policies that got us in this mess. I can only call them traitors, what else can you call such liars?.
Everything you say about Republicans is exaggerated and equally true of the Democrats. You're just too biased to see it. There is no good vs evil in American politics. Are you aware that the other side thinks that the Democratic party is the evil force? Your whole post is very simplistic and childish.
Now if you could step outside your obviously narrow minded, heavily biased and one sided view of politics for a moment, please tell me how any of that stuff you like so much will have an immediate and positive effect on the economy.
At first, I thought, "maybe JerryD is right and they've published information that's wrong- I'll follow the link and see." After what seems like ranting, however, I'm not inclined to do so. Diatribes don't win anyone over.
Also, the article has specific (pg #) references. JerryD directs you to 'CBO.gov', which tells me nothing.
Yes, certainly the morally bankrupt repubs are down to lies and distortions. However, the irresponsible dems can't hide the facts. the CBO says that 91.86% of this pork package won't be given away until after 2010. Really lots of help for the real folks here. As to the pork payment to Planned Unparenthood, that needed to be taken out. What a joke. The outfit takes in over 95 million for abortions, pays its executives 6 figure salaries, spends 42.9 million for "fund" raising, itself gives 11.5 million to the Guttmacher Institute, spent over 42 million fighting anti abortion laws, spent over 10 million supporting pro abortion candidates, etc., etc. No doubt the organization does good, but it doesn't need money from a STIMULUS package intended to help lift the country out of a depression.
More lies. Go to the actual CBO report says most will be spent in 18 months. You should be ashamed of such lying but as a repub your probably disposed to it judging from your writing. That kind of behavior is called a sociopath!! One who destroys without any remorse.
www.cbo.gov
You repubs have destroyed the country so bad it's going to be very hard to recover especially since you are trying so hard to make sure we fail. That makes you a traitor as one trying to destroy our gov, country.
The repubs solution they have given is more tax cuts!! Just what along with th their other bankrupt policies of preemptive war, bad energy policies that drove prices to $140/bbl-$4/gal and lax financial regulation got us into this mess. these are all facts you can try to deny but the economy tells the story.
The Repubs had a $250B surplus and they turned that into a $1.2T deficit just for this yr and $6T over 8 yrs is a plain fact.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/04/cbo-obama-stimulus-harmful-over-long-haul /
Looks like all of those great number and stimulus don't look so great now. Leave it alone and let the market reset. Why throw money at an overinflated economy? All you are doing is postponing the inevitable. We didn't bailout Cisco, Nortel, and others during the tech bubble, why is now so different?
I would love to hear your oh so educated response to this article from the CBO.
I guess that you would be labeled the Traitor and the Liar now. Spewing false information and conjecture.
This article is badly done spin by Dinan. Check his own numbers which make his spin look dumb. First he says with great fan fair that the debt in 2019 will cut GDP then by .1-.3% for the 800B stimulus now.
So how much was the GDP cut by the $7T debt run up by the repubs over the last 8 yrs? Well last yr it dropped 5% and more this yr. So the repub have caused 15-50x's the GDP drop than the stimulus will cost, No?
And in the article admits the next yr increase 1.2 to 4.1% in GDP and about the same in 2010 in GDP product. Isn't that worth it for a .1% reduction once the economy recovers when the GDP increase is 3-4%?
It's this kind of spin, distortion, selective data that killed our economy, got us in needless wars, ran up the price of oil by a bad energy policy and cut banking regulation that has screwed the us which just this month lost 600,000 jobs. Nor does that include the 175,000 jobs needed to make up for population increase/month!!
So just who is spewing false information bmazxz? It can't be you could it? Who is the traitor, liar? Maybe you should look in the mirror?
I'm not an idealog but a moderate dependent fiscal conservative who looks at data with an unbiased eye and let the chips fall where they may. I want what is best for the US wherever that comes from. Sadly for the last 8 yrs repubs have been and still are morally bankrupt as proven by their actions.
Whoops, sorry I've upset you, and I'm not a Republican. Know what you are as name calling is the predilection of the far left. What I looked at was a chart posted on the web site mentioned in the article. According to the latest report, the spending bill, as written will put 64% into the economy maybe within 19 months. That includes government handouts to the citizens (and non citizens) of the United States who do not currently pay any income tax. I doubt very much if the money given to these people, @$500 to $1,000 will do much to stimulate the economy. The bill does have provisions for student loans and re-education. That is a great idea, especially for those with "blue collar" jobs, which they have lost. It will help put them into the category of "white collar"' workers, who if not hired when they graduate, or are hired and then fired, will not be able to take from the government's cookie jar.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."
Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1714-1778
Seems we are well past the complacency part.....