… and for good reason.

Ten minutes, 35 seconds. It’s worth the time to watch and (re)learn.

Donald Lambro @ WashingtonTimes

It will take a lot longer than almost anyone thinks for the Obama administration to get the $825 billion stimulus money into the economy. Don’t believe me? Read the Congressional Budget Office’s recent analysis of the Democrats’ plan.

President Obama has said he intends to give the economy “a jolt” by quickly injecting stimulus funds into the nation’s economic arteries in the hopes of creating more than 3 million jobs. But according to the nonpartisan CBO, which crunches budget numbers for Congress, only a small fraction of the proposed $274 billion in infrastructure spending to jump-start the economy will be spent by the end of this fiscal year and the rest won’t be disbursed until 2010 or later.

Among CBO’s findings:

- Only about $26 billion, or 9 percent of the infrastructure stimulus, will be spent by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2009.

- Less than half of the $30 billion in highway-construction money will be circulated over the next four years.

- Incredibly, CBO says only about $4 billion in highway-construction funds will get into the economy by September 2010.

- Mr. Obama talks about creating thousands of “green” jobs by pumping billions into biofuel, solar, wind and other technology. But most of those jobs won’t be seen for many years. Only about $1 in $7 of the stimulus plan’s $18.5 billion investment in renewable-energy resources and energy-efficiency programs will be spent by 2010, according to the CBO.

Its findings reaffirm Obama economic adviser Jason Furman’s warning last year that infrastructure spending is one of the “less-effective options” for boosting jobs and economic growth. In an economic paper evaluating all the ways to end the recession, Mr. Furman doubted any infrastructure spending “would generate significant short-term stimulus,” because all too often the money is not spent “until after the economy has recovered.”

But this is only part of the story in this huge public-works boondoggle that experience tells us cannot and will not get the economy growing again. Here’s where much of the money is going:

(1) Government-run programs at the federal, state and local level. This stimulus bill will pour billions into 150 different federal programs, from the money-losing Amtrak rail service to the Transportation Security Administration.

(2) The Pell Grants get $15.6 billion, to increase each student grant by $500, though the added money ends in two years. This may be a worthy thing to do, but it’s not going to create any new jobs.

(3) Another $54 billion will go to 19 programs that the Office of Management and Budget has rated as “ineffective” or “results not demonstrated.”

(4) Much of the money will go to federal programs that still have unspent funding in their accounts. For instance, the bill will pump another $2 billion into the Army Corps of Engineers’ water-construction program that still has $1.5 billion in unobligated funds.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s homeless-assistance program would get $1.5 billion despite an unobligated balance of $1.5 billion.

The General Services Administration has $3.3 billion of unspent funds, but GSA would get another $7.7 billion from the stimulus package.

(5) Billions will be dished out under this so-called stimulus bill mostly to protect or create government jobs - including money to renovate federal buildings, and $600 million for the government to buy brand-new cars and vans.

The money is being spread around like a slush fund, going out to every nook and cranny of the federal bureaucracy. This will not create a single new job, let alone stimulate the economy. Everyone from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Smithsonian Institution will get a piece of the action.

As for the plan’s “making work pay” tax credit that will lower withholding taxes for low- to middle-class workers, it is estimated this would add $10 to $20 per paycheck for those below the median income level. That’s far from the much-hyped economic “jolt” that Mr. Obama is promising beleaguered taxpayers.

_{Donald Lambro, chief political correspondent of The Washington Times, is a nationally syndicated columnist.}

In their freaking dreams…

thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z

H.J.RES.5
Title: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.
Sponsor: Rep Serrano, Jose E. [NY-16] (introduced 1/6/2009)      Cosponsors (None)
Latest Major Action: 1/6/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Another sodahead discussion on defining socialism… bear to beadfulheart:

Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating common market paradigms often based in state, internationally merged corporations and collective ownership which addresses the administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and an egalitarian society characterized by equal opportunities for all individuals through theories of egalitarian distribution and regulation of wealth………so this is the wikipedia definition….pls highlight your points of contention…..egalitarian society characterized by equal opportunities?…… common market paradigms?…..thank you

Egalitarian society characterized by equal opportunities. Common market paradigms.

Nice, pleasant terms. Who wouldn’t want to believe in the promise of such a wholesome, kumbaya society. The problem with phrases and descriptions such as those is that they are simply non-specific, vague and ambiguous at best. Nothing more. The problem with framing an argument or discussion about socialism is that for each person their own point of view defines it differently. You may see equality and freedom from injustice, while I may see unfair practices giving opportunity to ‘who’ someone is rather that ‘what’ someone does. Who wouldn’t want an end to socio-economic distress and imbalance? But the reality is what it is… “… inequality of some kind will always be a characteristic of the human condition.” _{W. J. Stankiewicz}

Simplified? Taking, by mandate, from those that do and giving to those that don’t, and won’t, will never GROW a strong, healthy, productive society; it will never stimulate the economy, education, health care or technological advances. In a mixed liberal/conservative/capitalist society where the poor and sick are cared for, where the middle class is allowed to make their own decisions and the successful and affluent are allowed to function as producers and economic catalysts is a society that can be healthy, potent and beneficial to everyone. The key, imo, is a centrist approach. There must needs, of course, be some redistribution of wealth to care for those who CANnot (not WILL not) care for themselves. Anything more and it then becomes the elite ‘deciders’ making decisions for ‘the masses’. Forced (so-called equal) redistribution, forced or mandatory compliance in some dream of an egalitarian utopian society, will merely grease the skids and hasten the death of America.

No one wins when collectivism or excessive liberal socialism replaces individuality no matter how pleasantly it is explained or defined.

MARKETWATCH - PRESS RELEASE

New Poll Warns Daschle, Obama: Mandatory Health Insurance Big Loser with Public; Voters Want Return on Stem Cell Research

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec 11, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — Less than 15% of U.S. voters support, and 53% oppose, a proposal pushed by health insurers requiring every American to provide proof of private health insurance or face tax penalties or other fines, according to a new poll. The poll, commissioned by Consumer Watchdog, also found that by just under a two-to-one margin voters favor requiring a return on taxpayer-funded research that leads to new medical treatments or prescription drugs. Download the poll here: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/healthcarepollmemo.pdf. [...] The poll was conducted by Grove Insight.

President-elect Obama opposed policies requiring all Americans to buy private health insurance coverage, the so-called “individual mandate,” as a candidate. Senator Tom Daschle left open the possibility of his support for the approach in his book, “Critical,” under the pretense that he is “not willing to sacrifice worthy improvements on the altar of perfection.” Unlike plans pushed by health insurers, Daschle’s proposal importantly would give Americans access to a public insurance program “modeled after Medicare.” Overall, 40% of voters say they are “strongly” opposed to mandating that “every American show proof that they have health insurance coverage or face tax penalties.”

It’s not rocket science. I simply do not understand how so many can be so blind to reality.

So all together now Pres-Elect Barry Obama PEBO’s boys and girls; come on you die-hard liberal hippies and naive left-loons…. you can do it. Sure you can, it’s not hard.

Let’s spell it first… S O C I A L I S M. See, that was easy…now try saying it. Socialism. Keep saying it, again and again. FEEL the word, accept the word; accept that it is not a groovy, feel good, pie in the sky, kumbaya feeling of communal intercourse… it is a dangerous and destructive REALITY.

After you’ve master the bad ‘word‘ then you might want to LEARN a few things about it’s HISTORY. Put the two together, socialism + historical research, and enlightenment may follow.

Again… it’s not rocket science and I simply do not understand how so many can be so blind to reality.