So what's in the so-called stimulus package?

[[AK]Bribo]

50 Reasons to vote NO.

VARIOUS LEFT-WINGERY:
1. $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
2. $380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
3. $300 million for grants to combat violence against women
4. $2 billion for federal child care block grants
5. $6 billion for university building projects
6. $15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships
7. $4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion to provide “youth” summer jobs for people up to the age of 24
8. $1 billion for community development block grants
9. $4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”
10. $650 million for digital TV coupons, including $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”

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

STIMULUS FOR THE GOVERNMENT:
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

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

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”

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

REWARDING STATE IRRESPONSIBILITY:
50. $79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund

[[AK]Palooka]

I know a good way to stimulate the economy: Give the people their damned money back. Obama cannot be trusted with it. Somehow he and the creepy twin morticians, Reid and Pelosi, have confused economic stimulus with massive government expansion. I'm no expert on economics, but I'm not sure how this bill stimulates the economy in any way whatsoever. If there is any sanity left in our government, then this atrocity will fail to pass in the Senate.

[[AK]Bribo]

The Fierce Urgency of Pork

"Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new."

"The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington."

[Slaughter]

If they want pork so bad, they should just invest in a pig farm. That will be much cheaper.

[[AK]Bribo]

This is the stuff that burns me:

"General Motors plans to invest $1 billion in Brazil to avoid the kind of problems the U.S. automaker is facing in its home market, said the beleaguered car maker.

According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to "complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012."

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?Cate...ticleId=320909

This amounts to global wealth redistribution. Out of my pocket and into the pockets of someone in Brazil.

[Slaughter]

Don't forget that the Gov't will likely force GM and Chrysler into Chapter 11 to protect U.S. debt.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...XXo&refer=home

I don't understand how the politicians could possibly believe that bailing out failures was the right idea.

[[AK]Squidly]

A message from Chuck, directly to all of you. Take it to heart.

[[AK]Bribo]

And he says it all with a grin. The grin of a man who smugly realizes that with the Dems now controlling both the Congress and the White House that there is absolutely nothing to stand in their way.

America wanted change. They are going to get it.

[Slaughter]

I lay the blame at ignorant voters that voted with emotion instead of sense (unfortunately they also just happened to outnumber the voters with sense).

[[AK]Bribo]

This might be the scariest part of the entire stimulus package:

"Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far. "

Read the whole thing: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aLzfDxfbwhzs

More here: http://www.nypost.com/seven/02112009...ing_154499.htm

[[AK]Abaddon]

Schumer would top my list of the politicians I dislike most. His slimy fingerprints were all over most of the anti-gun legislation back in the '90s. The man is completely worthless at anything except pandering to the left.

[[AK]The Beast]

He's also taken anti-free speech positions (specifically on violent video game content) in the past, too. That gets my back up in a big, big way.

On the other hand, the appointment of Gillibrand was about as good as we could have expected from the current government of NY State.

[[AK]Beaker]

Bribo,
I see nothing wrong with electronic medical records and having doctors practice evidence based medicine.
I'm sorry I don't see the downside to this. I can offer you some well researched articles if you want on error rate reductions and improved quality of care.

[[AK]Nuts]

It limits innovation and risk taking. It enables the one-shoe fits all mentality that is plaguing the UK and Canadian medical system. If your doctor doesn't prescribe the recommended medicines in the correct regime as dictated by the government he will lose funding and accreditation.

The first step in enacting this socialist medical bureaucracy is to first gather the medical records of all US Citizens. The next step is to conduct comparitive analysis on those records to determine averages and then finally apply those findings to your personal health care with a cost/benefit overhead

The first two steps are included in the crap sandwich. The next will come soon enough and the days of you and your doctor working out a personalized plan for recovery or treatment will be gone and an accountant will identify the correct regiment of treatment based on averages and costs. You will become a number.

This is bad for you.

This is bad for America.

Shame on our elected officials and all of those that elected them.

[[AK]The Beast]

Electronic, easily transferable records are definitely a good thing...so long as they are properly secured. Requiring government approval for every treatment move a doctor makes is unwieldy and interferes with a doctor's ability to do his/her job. Bad doctors lose their licenses. We go to good doctors because we trust their judgment. Total government oversight eliminates that judgment from the picture.