January 29, 2009

Stimulus?


The massive spending bill being debated this week on Capitol Hill is not a stimulus bill. The $819 billion pork laden bill passed the House of Representatives yesterday and is now going to the Senate. Despite the fact the Barack Obama went and visited House Republicans in an effort to get them on board, the only thing bi-partisan about the bill was that both Democrats and Republicans voted agaisnt it.

Eleven blue dog Democrats and each and every Republican in the House voted against consigning future generations to pay for the subsidization of liberal special interest groups like ACORN and pet projects like global warming research.

Perhaps some of the items in the bill are worthy, but apparently not many can be accurately argued to be stimulative to the economy. So what we have then is a massive Democratic pet project spending bill not too convincingly masquerading as an emergency economic stimulus bill. Thank god no Republican voted for this thing (John McCain hasn't voted yet). The Republicans might actually be becoming a viable party again that stands for something.

Sadly, it is the Republican alternative proposal (which was voted down) that stood a chance of actually stimulating the economy. Cutting taxes allows the private sector a better chance to begin to dig our way out of the recession rather than relying on government make-work projects and theoretical R & D type projects to somehow lift us out of the doldrums. By cutting the corporate tax businesses will be able to plow some more money back into their own business and eventually begin hiring rather than firing. And cutting the income tax understands that the people know better how to spend their own money than the state does.

Spending 2.4 billion dollars on "carbon-capture demonstration projects" won't do much to stimulate the economy. Cutting certain taxes will have an immediate effect.

If Barack Obama is truly a transformative and transformational leader, he will listen to the Republicans and in the 'stimulus' bill include some more serious tax cuts and dramatically less Democratic pie-in-the-sky pet projects.

It's that simple. Barack Obama's legacy and the future of this country are at stake.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spot on! Good to hear from you. Keep writing, you are good my friend..

Anonymous said...

You are quite predictable...... Why not argue both sides a bit instead of just propagandizing? I'm sure you don't think that's what you are doing, but maybe ask Ken , Al or anyone that is not Rush Limbaugh. Thanks for your consideration.

JasMars said...

What's predictable is when liberals dismiss or attempt marginalize opposition rather than logically debating the substance of the matter.

JasMars said...

"I guess there is a pleasure in following the crowd"

Who would that be in reference to? Barrack Obama voters?

Actually this so called stimulus bill won majority support, so making a substantive argument against it is actually precisely the opposite of "following the crowd".

It's interesting that you quote mark twain to essentially make the argument that I have made up my mind on what the truth is.

In fact the whole reason I would sit and construct an argument and then put it out there is so that someone might want to engage in the substance of what is being discussed and show me where and why I'm wrong.

But in lieu if that the playbook is always to go straight to an analysis of my personality or temperament.

Or the tired charge that I'm merely parroting something I heard somewhere when the reality is that I am quite capable of arriving at my own conclusions about a given topic.

It's not even that hard to have an opinion on a political matter, you should try it sometime.

In a vacuum, I am able to come to the conclusion that closing Gitmo without first knowing what to do with the detainees is unwise.

I don't have to consult rush limbaugh to come to the conclusion that cutting the corporate tax rate will have more of a stimulative effect on the economy then global warming research, for example.

One of my favorite quotes comes from the bible: "as iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another"

I only put forth ideas so that they may be possibly proven wrong, challenged, or improved. But so often the substance of what I'm talking about is overlooked and in it's place the devolvement into a petty exchange of personal attacks.

I've seen it countless times...if you can't attack the message, then attack the messenger.

Kent said...

I freaking hate it when people call me 'Ken.'

Anonymous said...

It is PLAINLY obvious that Predident Obama LISTENS to others. Indeed he listens more to those with whom he disagrees than those who are already "with him." That style of governance is not only in evidence in these economy discussions, it is also evident in his very quickly shown initial effort in the Middle East. And, THAT style of goverance was absolutely absent from 2001 through last week. I hope and expect he WILL take some tips and changes from the Republicans. That said, James, the results of unfettered, unregulated EXTREME capitalisim AND those that support and promote that philosophy has been totally discredited by all sorts of nearly weekly events in the last year. Hey, in the last week - there are more crass examples of our Royalty's greed, at Bank America AND at the Georgia peanut plant that hadn't been checked by the FDA in 15 years...WHY? Because shrinking government (that gov't that IS "the problem") has lead to our having 10% of the FDA inspectors we had 20 years ago. Remember the phrase, "government of, by, and FOR the PEOPLE." AND...while I do hope that some of the Republicans ideas are injected into the plan, it is NOT as if Republican economic philosophy has served us so freaking well in the last three decades. Extremes don't make it...neither extreme. We do NOT need Socialism and neither do we need unfettered greedy feudal-state-creating capitalism.

Chris said...

I freakin' hate when I'm not the only Obama supporter to leave comments. :)