DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum What happened to scrubbing federal programs to eliminate the fat?

Here is some more same-ole-same-ole politics brought to you by the messenger/messiah of "Change".

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/28/special-groups-line-piece-stimulus/

Well...he DID invite others to the White House for a cocktail party to discuss this insane stimulus bill.

If you do not read the article, read this:

Of the 819 BILLION dollars being spent...only 30 BILLION is for the infrastructure project.

I thought the infrastructure program was the centerpiece to the job creation being promised...lets spend THAT and forget about the other 789 BILLION.

25 MILLION for new ATV trails? Are they kidding?!

400 MILLION for global warming "research"?

Wow.

This isn't a stimulous bill, it's just an $800 mass pork conglomeration.

More of the same but honestly who really expected anything more ? .

Of course...really, should we expect anything different? Who chooses who gets what in these things, anyway? The President himself?

here's the bill for anyone interested(pdf format):
web page

I'm still wondering how giving money to the census bureau, acorn and to research for climate change is going to stimulate the economy. Change we can believe in.

There are so many worthwhile things that could be funded with this money that I didn't see included:

* The mating cycle of Seacows, a study.
* Tim Couch or Kelly Holcomb, a study

The list is really endless.........

This site could probably get several mil to locate long lost posters..where is Dekedawg, Big Jay

What's wrong with that? They've already saved the world numerous times.

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Stereotyping at its finest. Way to take the few idiots and expand it to the masses.

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Sorry, but the number of people who thought we were ushering in a new era of hope and change and blasted McCain as a continuation of old policies is NOT relegated to a "few idiots"...

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Just as I am sure that many of you did not regret your vote for W when he made mistakes.

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My first vote for him I will never regret, my second vote for him... I often regret that I didn't have a better option.

So I'm sorry.. I expected change. I at least expected AN ATTEMPT at change. I honestly didn't think I would like the change, but now I'm left wondering if there will be any change at all.... I suppose those who direly WANT to see change will see it, even if it's not there... not that you are one of those people.... And I will give credit to CNN for calling President Obama on his alleged change....
web page

Oh, he's going to sign it + some. I can't imagine that those of you who voted for him would expect him to behave any differently based on his campaign. He's going to spend a hell of a lot of money.....and the pork will live on.

Wow Jules. I garnered two posts from you for the same statement.

And I agree, he will sign it. That is why I stated that same fact it in my very next sentence.

Well, actually it was one but, this board times out so badly that it makes two when you try to edit sometimes.

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And I agree, he will sign it. That is why I stated that same fact it in my very next sentence.

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Well, then you knew what was coming, why feign surprise or dislike for it?

He'll sign it; now who believes that these House Democrats they "say" wrote it, wrote it without Presidential input ??

He'll sign it.

The second line wasn't referring to the double post thingy. I edited to make it clearer....although I think it was self-explanatory.

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I just think that there are lot of senisble people who voted for obama who did not expect a miracle.

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You are probably right... I guess I just expected more than I'm seeing... In his first week + he has renegued on his pledge to not have lobbyists in high ranking positions and he has renegued on his pledge to scrub and scrutinize these budgets and cut the fat... (assuming he signs this)...

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To use a football metaphor. About all we have had is the kickoff. There is still 59 minutes and 45 seconds still to play in this presidency.

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Well, he fumbled the kickoff.. ... hopefully he can hold them to a FG and get the ball back... One of the things Bush did wrong was he lost the lead early, he got way behind, he ended up trying to play catch-up the whole game, he had to abandon his gameplan (which wasn't all that bad in the beginning) and in the end he got crushed.

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I think that Obama honestly wants a bipartisan congress, but the biggest thing standing in the way of that is the Democratic Leadership on Capital Hill.

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I agree 100%...

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That and Nancy Pelosi needs to be removed from speaker of the house. I do not know of anyone else on capital hill who promotes partisan ideals and thinking more than her.

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Ok, I take back all of the mean and nasty things I said about you... ... She won't be removed, she is the link between the moderate democrats and the radical left whose support the democratic party depends on.

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What happened to scrubbing federal programs to eliminate the fat?

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Sadly, it is nothing more than a figment of your imagination when you have a liberal house, a liberal senate and liberal president. Many more federal programs will be created than scrapped. Just read this bill for starters.

First of all, I almost got sick to my stomach reading that - and I didn't read a whole lot of it.

Secondly, who writes this stuff?

And third: I'd like to see the hands of exactly how many congress people read the whole thing.

This country is so far beyond screwed it isn't even funny anymore.

Wasn't too long ago people cared about the national debt..........it was a big topic, people concerned about how their kids were going to pay for it. Now, it seems no one cares. Let's just print more money.

What happens when the dollar is replaced by some other currency as the benchmark?

I see a mess coming the likes of which this world has never seen.

And actually, I'm generally pretty optimistic.

The case for doing nothing
By: Eamon Javers and Jim VandeHei
January 28, 2009 03:59 PM EST

Most of Washington has reached quick consensus: Government must do something big to shock the economy, and it should cost between $800 billion and $900 billion.

But dissident economists and investment professionals offer a much different take: Most of Washington is dead wrong.

Instead of fighting over what should go in the economic stimulus bill, pitting infrastructure spending against tax cuts and contractors against contraceptives, they say lawmakers should be fighting against the very idea of any economic stimulus at all. Call them the Do-Nothing Crowd.

“The economy was too big. It was all phantom wealth borrowed from abroad,” says Andrew Schiff, an investment consultant at Euro Pacific Capital and a card-carrying member of the stand-tall-against-the-stimulus lobby. “All this stimulus money is geared toward getting consumers spending and borrowing again. But spending and borrowing were the problem in the first place.”

Washington has a habit of passing legislation in a crisis and suffering from morning-after regrets — the Iraq war, the Patriot Act and last year’s original bank bailout plan come to mind. So we thought it would be wise to air the views of the naysayers toward Washington’s latest consensus approach.

First, we’ll look at the Do-Nothing Crowd. On Thursday, we will hear from the go-bigger-or-go-home gang, who argue that even $1 trillion in spending is far too small — and that the stimulus package should be much bigger than $825 billion.

There is no doubt these are minority views. Most lawmakers, economists and policymakers say the economy desperately needs a massive infusion of money to prevent collapse — and needs it now. The Obama administration, backed by many economists, says unemployment could easily top 10 percent and the gross domestic product could tank absent government intervention.

The language used to make the case for stimulus is stark and gloomy — and, by all measures, pretty accurate. But there is also a caveat attached to every solution proposed: that it simply might not work. Economists on the right and left say there is a chance, perhaps a decent one, that $1 trillion injected into a $14 trillion economy might be too little, too late to turn things around anytime soon.

In fact, government stimulus plans have a long history of failure. Remember last February’s $168 billion economic stimulus package? President Bush called it “a booster shot for our economy” and promised that it was large enough to have an effect. It wasn’t, and it didn’t work.

This time around, the Do-Nothing Crowd argues that the new spending — which dwarfs last year’s effort — is probably insufficient and definitely unwise. It is largely an economic argument. But there is also a cultural dimension. Many of the Do-Nothings argue that a painful recession is the best way to destroy America’s runaway culture of irresponsibility and debt. Economic turmoil, after all, has a way of grounding Americans.

Schiff and the other Do-Nothings argue that the government should simply allow the economic chips to fall where they may. Dramatic belt-tightening across the board is the only way, they say, to stop the endless cycle of borrowing.

“Our standard of living needs to come down to the point where it can be supported by organic output,” says Schiff. “It’s brutal, but it’s called capitalism, and it works. The alternative is called socialism, and it doesn’t work.”

To help push that argument on Capitol Hill, the libertarian Cato Institute plans to take out a full-page ad in The New York Times and The Washington Post on Thursday and Roll Call on Wednesday, making the case against stimulus. The ad will include the names of 250 economists across the country who oppose the massive spending and tax cut program that’s backed by President Barack Obama and many congressional leaders. Many of those are Do-Nothings, while others have more nuanced views about how the proposal as packaged won’t work.

For the Do-Nothings, the argument isn’t about economic nuance, it’s about right and wrong. They say that borrowing more money to finance a stimulus package will pass a crushing and possibly permanent debt load on to the next generation. “The question is,” says Chris Edwards, the director of tax policy studies at Cato, “is this morally proper?”

Edwards says no. “Policymakers are saying: ‘Screw the future generations.’”

The Do-Nothing Crowd also points to some of the hidden upsides of the recession — developments they say are already helping position the U.S. economy for a recovery.

The most noticeable impact is that housing prices are coming down to a more sustainable level. For first-time buyers, this is reopening a path to homeownership that had been all but blocked by hyper-inflated prices. The National Association of Realtors reported this week that housing sales rose 6.5 percent from November to December, largely on the strength of bargain hunters snapping up foreclosed properties. That could be a sign that the housing market is on its way to a balancing point at which lower prices once again draw new buyers into the system.

In the meantime, weak companies that have problems competing are being weeded out of the system. For example, Circuit City announced that it would liquidate its stores and assets, laying off an estimated 34,000 employees. That’s not necessarily a tragedy, argues Cato’s Edwards. “The weak are getting weeded out. Circuit City had crappy customer service, and I’m glad that Best Buy will survive and Circuit City will not.” Ideally, the collapse of weaker competitors is an economic opportunity for the stronger survivors to gain market share — and hire new workers.

Another galvanizing effect of the downturn is that companies have been forced to face the reality that they haven’t been making products that customers actually want to buy. General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner, for example, conceded in testimony on Capitol Hill in December that his company had made mistakes, including “not moving fast enough to invest in smaller, more-fuel-efficient vehicles for the U.S. market.” As the old saying goes, imminent death has a way of focusing the mind.

An even better consequence of recession, say the Do-Nothings, is that American families are finally starting to pay down the dangerously high debt levels they’ve accumulated. One of the reasons last year’s economic stimulus failed, in fact, was that Americans used the money to pay off bills, not to spend on new products. In a country that had developed a negative personal savings rate, that’s probably a good thing.

And here’s something truly surprising: The recession might even be good for your health. The New York Times reported that Americans are drinking less alcohol, noting that a “study based on surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1987 through 1999 found that drinking in this country generally drops during economic hard times, especially among heavy drinkers.” That may be not due to a renewed sense of sobriety and responsibility, but rather to the decline in workers’ discretionary income. Still, liver surgeons will tell you that less drinking is probably healthy.

For all that, the Do-Nothings fully expect to lose the argument in Washington this week. The political momentum is all on the side of the stimulus. “Politicians feel a need to validate their own political authority, and they feel they have to do something,” says Robert Romano of the nonprofit group Americans for Limited Government.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Edward Prescott of Arizona State University agrees. “Congress has to do what people want, and it’s clear that the people want this stimulus,” Prescott says. “But I just wish the people would tell them: ‘Don’t do it.’”


http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=1AC37160-18FE-70B2-A860844BCB994D7D


The Ad:


http://boortz.com/common/pdf/atlanta/FINAL_Cato_Stimulus.pdf

j/c

Like Glenn Beck or not, he seeks out the truth. He'll go after republican or Democrat - doesn't matter to him.

Check this out: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/20641/?ck=1

Arch.

i read the glen beck link.

He makes some good points, but he also does a good job of manipulating the data to make his point.

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Although this legislation has been billed and described as a transportation and infrastructure investment package, but only three percent ($30 billion) of this package is for road and highway spending.

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Take this one for instance. Yes there might be only 30 million being spent on highways and bridges, but roads and bridges are not the only type of infrastructure.

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Construction projects: $90 billion. Fund the rebuilding of crumbling roads and bridges, build clean water and flood-control mechanisms and provide funding for mass-transit systems.

Education: $142 billion. Rebuild thousands of schools by modernizing classrooms, labs and libraries.

Renewable energy: $54 billion. Double production of alternative energy in the next three years. Weatherize low-income homes, modernize 75% of federal buildings and update the nation’s electrical grid with a new, cost-efficient “smart” grid.

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link

As long as you narrowly define infrastructure to mean only roads and bridges. Then sure there is only 30 billion on infrastructure.

Glen Beck can make some good points, but you need to take him with a grain of salt, because he will purposefully manipulate the data to fit his premise.

Your guys generation is leaving a ton of crap for mine to have to clean up.

(Not saying it's YOUR fault, but it's true.)

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only 30 billion

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Now you're sounding like a politician..

Sorry hungry, couldn't resist.

Granted. But I will say this about Beck: he's about the most unbiased host there is. He'll go after anyone, repub. or democrat. When he speaks, I listen, because he isn't just blowing smoke.

check this out:http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/20641/?ck=1

In it, we have this: " • President-elect Obama has said that his proposed stimulus legislation will create or save 3 million jobs. This means that this legislation will spend about $275,000 per job. The average household income in the U.S. is $42,000 a year."

Is that stimulus? Spend $275,000 to create or save a job that pays, say even $100,000? That's stupid in my opinion.

If the gov't can afford to spend $275,000 to save or create a job, why can't it give a business a $50,000 tax cut for every job it creates?

Hell, I'd be hiring 2 people if that were the case. Instead, we get "gov't. knows better than you idiot businesses. Give us your money, and we'll create jobs".

As I said in a different thread: this country is so screwed it doesn't even know it. It's like the country took a date rape drug and is going to wake up tomorrow and say "what the heck happened"? Except that we can see it coming, we just ignore it.

For anyone interested .....

Lou Dobbs Tonight
Thursday, January 29, 2009

Lou's Line-Item Veto on Infrastructure

Television
* Join us tonight for Lou's Line-Item Veto on infrastructure. President Obama and Democrats are touting this bill as an infrastructure spending bill. But only about $150 billion dollars out of more than $800 billion actually goes to infrastructure and construction projects. We'll have all the details tonight in "Lou's Line-Item Veto."

Here's an article talking about the Senate version.....Scary stuff....

Source


US-EU trade war looms as Barack Obama bill urges 'Buy American'
The prospect of a trade war between the US and Europe is looming after "Buy American" provisions were added to President Barack Obama's $820 billion (£573 billion) stimulus package.


By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 9:34PM GMT 29 Jan 2009


The EU trade commissioner vowed to fight back after the bill passed in the House of Representatives late on Wednesday included a ban on most purchases of foreign steel and iron used in infrastructure projects.

The Senate's version of the legislation, which will be debated early next week, goes even further, requiring that any projects related to the stimulus use only American-made equipment and goods.

The inclusion of protectionist measures has quickly raised hackles in Europe.

Catherine Ashton, the EU trade commissioner, said: "We are looking at the situation. The one thing we can be absolutely certain about, is if a bill is passed which prohibits the sale or purchase of European goods on American territory, that is something we will not stand idly by and ignore."

Despite the parlous state of the US economy, some major American firms, including General Electric, are also opposed to the Buy American stipulations, fearing reprisals from overseas and further damage to the global economy.

Bill Lane, government affairs director for Caterpillar, which has just laid off nearly a fifth of its 112,000 work force and is the tenth largest US investor in Britain, warned it was a dangerous step.

He said: "We are the first to recognise that if the US embraces Buy American then the whole notion of buying national will mestastasize and limit our ability to take part in overseas projects.

"We are students of history. A major reason a very deep recession turned into the Great Depression was the fact that countries turned inward."

Countries in Europe and Asia are planning major injections of cash into infrastructure to boost their economies, and US firms don't want to be left out of potentially lucrative contracts.

"We would be a primary beneficiary of any type of infrastructure project in the US, but at the same time we are one of the country's largest exporters," he added.

Some industrial giants also question whether the Buy American laws would contravene US obligations reached in various World Trade Organisation agreements.

They also point to the 1930s as a lesson in the perils of protectionism. Congress passed the Buy American Act in 1933, allowing the government to favour US products for government contracts. Restrictions were eased in 1982, but the plans currently working their way through Congress would bring the new law close to its forebear of 75 years ago.

Foreign steel would only be allowed if using US steel drove up the cost of a project by more than 25 per cent, while the bill passed on Wednesday required that the Transportation and Security Administration use American-made uniforms.

Supporters of Buy American argue that tighter measures are required to protect American jobs and point out that the US steel industry is losing out to Chinese imports subsidised by Beijing.

"As we are losing jobs in record numbers, we obviously need to devote these funds to direct creation of American jobs," said Sherrod Brown, a senator from Ohio, part of the struggling industrial heartland.

Unemployment in his state has risen to 7.6 per cent, up from 5.8 per cent in December 2007.

"To do that, we must ensure that federal funds are used to buy American products and to help promote manufacturing in our country. Ultimately I want taxpayers to know where their dollars are being spent. Are they being spent on American products or products coming from Germany or Mexico?"

Mr Obama has sent mixed signals on free trade throughout his campaign and the early days of his presidency. He has argued that the North American Free Trade should be recalibrated in favour of American workers, but has stressed the need for a co-operative international approach to the economic crisis.

Though fellow Democrats in the house and senate drafted their versions of the stimulus bill, the new president and his advisers had major input and influence over the contents.

The bill failed to win a single Republican vote in the house, despite a major charm offensive by Mr Obama, which included a visit to Congress and an invitation to Congressional leaders to drinks at the White House.

It passed thanks to the Democrats' healthy majority, but the senate bill could see a tougher fight. Each rendering of the bill will be merged at a process known as conference, before being returned to both chambers for a new vote. The president has asked that a final bill be presented to him by February 13.