Herman

Cain

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February 2, 2009

It’s the Political Stimulus

This extended celebration of President Obama’s official move into the White House, plus the current economic crisis, has given the Democrats in Congress a convenient cover to try to steamroll their long-awaited list of socialist policies and pet pork projects into law. In the process, we the people get the shaft again.

In response to the latest pork projects derby disguised as an economic stimulus bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We won the election, we wrote the bill.” (Wall Street Journal Editorial, January 28, 2009)

So why did President Obama even bother to meet with House Republicans to talk about bi-partisan cooperation, which was a front page USA Today story last week? Pelosi and the House Democrats proved that it was just more bipartisan rhetoric, as they proceeded to pass the so-called stimulus bill with zero Republican votes.

President Obama has also met with Senate Republicans to gain their support for bi-partisan cooperation, as the Senate considers the House Stimulus Bill. The Senate will probably not get the same result of zero Republican votes, because a few RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) have always voted with the Democrats. The best we can hope for is that the Democrats will not get the 60 votes needed to end debate, which might force the Democrats to gut some of the pork out of the legislation.

President Obama said during his transition from senator to president that he would not allow the economic stimulus bill to contain a long list of pet pork projects. Let’s see, according to the same WSJ article referenced above: 

“There’s $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research (It snowed in Las Vegas – the desert – a few weeks ago) and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.”

I suppose it depends on how you define “long list”, and that’s just a sampling of the pork report on the legislation.

Overall, the House stimulus bill is two-thirds spending and one-third business and tax incentives. Most of those incentives are so small and scattered that it is unlikely they will have a big impact on anything.

Fox News has reported that 39 percent of the House stimulus spending bill will go to state and local governments. That means more government jobs, while many businesses are being forced to reduce their workforces. That means less tax revenue to pay toward the skyrocketing federal deficit.

The impact of the federal deficit on the tsunami national debt is not even a consideration by the new administration and congressional Democrats. Remember, President Obama said “deficits don’t matter,” and the Democrats in Congress quickly jumped on the bandwagon.

By all objective accounts, the House “stimulus bill” is not an economic stimulus bill. Business commentator Ben Stein called it a political stimulus bill. He’s right.

The economic crisis is going to be here for a while. So the longer Obama, the Democratic leaders in Congress and the mainstream media can continue to extend the celebration, the more they will be able to steamroll legislation into law.

In the meantime, we the people continue to get the shaft.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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