The Newer Deal

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before." - White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel

So starts the Wall Street Journal article on the newly crafted spending bill, excuse me, "stimulus package" created by the Obama administration and his Democrat allies on the Hill. This new package (.pdf) is anything but a stimulus for the economy. What it really is, is pork and more pork, piled on top of spending with a bare minimum of tax cuts.

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 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.

In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make "dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy." Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There's another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

This package provides $.12 of every dollar for anything that could reasonably be stimulating to the economy. The rest is favouritism and pork. And we, along with our children, will be the ones paying for this boondoggle. That's not including all the amendments getting tacked on, either. 206 by the Houses deadline. The Senate hasn't even had their chance to balloon this monstrosity by adding their own personal touches.

This package is worse than the previous one and will have no effect on the ailing economy. the majority of the spending won't even take effect until 2011. That's unlikely to help anyone who needs aid, not that the government is actually capable of doing anything substantive in that area.
As the Houses perennial gadfly points out...

This bill delivers an additional debt burden of $6,700 to every American man, woman and child.

There is a lot of stimulus and growth in this bill – that is, of government. Nothing in this bill stimulates the freedom and prosperity of the American people.

All we shall accrue from Mr. Obama's plan is less liberty, more debt and a jump in the size of an already cancerous government. We owe it to ourselves and our children to oppose this in whatever manner we can. As usual, "some people" are late to the party. Maybe they'll show up before Mr. Obama signs it into law. So, it's all up to us, as usual.

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Libertarian, Obama, Stimulus Package, Pork