Bottom Line

It's easy to get overwhelmed with all the back and forth over this stimulus bill, but Sen. John Cornyn has simplified it pretty well here.

This is the important part: (emphasis mine)

Fast Facts about the Democrats’ economic rescue plan:

• The plan establishes at least 32 new government programs at a cost of over $136 billion. That means more than a third of this plan’s spending provisions are dedicated to creating new government programs.

• Even though the legislation contains at least 152 separate spending proposals, the authors of the plan can only say that 34 have any chance at keeping or growing jobs.

• The Congressional Budget Office has issued a report showing that much of the stimulus spending would not occur quickly and therefore won’t help the economy now.

• Although the proposal has been billed as a transportation and infrastructure investment package, in actuality only $30 billion of the bill – or three percent – is for road and highway spending.

• Examples of pet projects Democrats wanted included in the rescue plan:

$600 million for new cars for the federal government.
$335 million for STD prevention
$50 million in funding for the National Endowment of the Arts.
$44 million for repairs to U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters.
$200 million for the National Mall, including $21 million for sod.
$4 billion in assistance for "nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities” including ACORN, which is currently under criminal investigation.

Good grief. Creating new government programs will not stimulate the economy. Only 3% for the "roads and bridges" we have been hearing so much about????! 3%!!! $600 million for NEW CARS? I don't think so. Preventing STD's, although a worthy goal, does nothing for the economy. Ridiculous. Although the National Mall does indeed need new soil. I was appalled at it's condition when I was there, this is NOT the time to do it. Anything with the language "nonprofit entities" should be tossed. Too arbitrary. I think we should let HGTV's "Design On a Dime" do the the Dept. of Agriculture's redo.

This bill was a nice try by the Democrats to slip in the things they love to spend our money on, but now is the time to tighten our belt. The Democrats WILL pass this bill unless they hear from the American people. The Republicans don't have the votes to stop them. We are all cutting back. Let's demand that Congress do the same with our money.